


Children of the Pear Garden

by migraine_Sky, ReinkeDeVos



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: AU, Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Canon, Angst, Barebacking, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Chinese Translation Available, Depression, Drinking, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Time, Frottage, Going to the movies, Guilt, Kidnapping, M/M, Mexico, PTSD, Post-Skyfall, Pre-Skyfall, Pulp Fiction and burgers, Q's name doesn't start with Q, Recreational Drug Use, Romance, Sexual Content, Skyfall, Sleep Deprivation, Tiago is 005, Violence, also Tiago is Mexican, iguanas and insufferable life partners, nor it is Geoffrey Boothroyd, not that it matters to the story, rare moments of fluff, way too much tranquilizers for Q
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-21
Updated: 2013-11-20
Packaged: 2017-12-06 01:11:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 44,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/729957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/migraine_Sky/pseuds/migraine_Sky, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReinkeDeVos/pseuds/ReinkeDeVos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A mere chance brought Tiago Rodriguez and future Q together in 1997. This meeting defined the course of life for at least one of them.</p><div class="center">
  <p> </p>
  <p>    <img/></p>
</div>
            </blockquote>





	1. Gris

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [戏中人](https://archiveofourown.org/works/949108) by [AnnaCanWait](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnaCanWait/pseuds/AnnaCanWait), [migraine_Sky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/migraine_Sky/pseuds/migraine_Sky), [ReinkeDeVos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReinkeDeVos/pseuds/ReinkeDeVos)
  * A translation of [Дети Грушевого Сада](https://archiveofourown.org/works/690031) by [migraine_Sky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/migraine_Sky/pseuds/migraine_Sky), [ReinkeDeVos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReinkeDeVos/pseuds/ReinkeDeVos). 



> This fic is translated and not beta'd... so feel free to correct us.  
> And we are looking forward to your comments!
> 
> Amazing AnnaCanWait translated this fic into CHINESE!!!  
> We have a fanmix made out of songs that inspired us!   
> http://8tracks.com/migraine_sky/children-of-the-pear-garden

Q compared the three hieroglyphs on his smartphone to a rather inconspicuous sign and pushed the door. The bell on the door tinkled melodically, several people turned their heads to the sound only to return to eating or talking in a couple of seconds. Not a single English word was heard in the soft hum of the restaurant. Wishing for a hundredth time, that he hadn’t agreed to this meeting, Q stepped into the room. Anxiously he looked at the diners – as if hoping to recognize a face he had never seen. Q’s work was behind the monitors and he didn’t really know why the hell he decided to go out in the field. But here he was, in Feng Shui Inn in London's Chinatown, looking for a person whose computer codes haunted him for almost a year.

An elderly Chinese man appeared out of nowhere greeting Q with a slight bow and motioned to follow him to private tables behind wooden screens. Curiosity killed a cat.

As soon as he saw a man sitting in an Italian cut tan suit, he froze. Unnaturally blond hair and bleached eyebrows were new to Q, but that did not stop him from recognizing immediately the face they framed. The man smiled, gestured invitingly to a chair. There could be no mistake.

“Tiago,” said Q without any emotion, slowly sitting down.

The man nodded like a person who just does not want to argue with you and answered.

“My name is Raoul Silva. Nice to meet you, Q.”

 

† † † † †

 

The bullet wound was pretty much a scratch, but a dull sting in his shoulder wouldn’t let him forget about it. Blood stain was increasingly sprawling under his jacket, fabric stuck to the skin. Agent 005, Tiago Rodriguez, turned into a side street, barely managing to escape another bullet that crushed a corner of a brick house right behind him. He really hated all this running around where everything depends not even on your physical training, endurance or speed – mere chance, unpredictable, accidental combination of steps, people in the street, road traffic can solve everything not in your favor. Another armed man appeared in the far end of the narrow street, and Tiago could do nothing but dart into some apartment building and run up the stairs to find at the end of it, perhaps, locked attic door and a bullet in the head. The mockery of a mere chance: he is cornered not somewhere between Kowloon multi-storey buildings, with streets so narrow they resemble cracks, not in the fish reeking back streets of Tai O, not among infinite variety of night lights of Hong Kong's skyscrapers, but here. In grey, boring and tranquil England which he happened to visit for the first time in the last 5 years. Of course, it was mostly his own fault. If it were not for his habit to go beyond orders, anticipating every next move of his superiors, he wouldn’t now be running with a discharged gun up the stair-well of some six-storey building in Sheffield. But this particular habit has made him one of the most successful agents in the history of MI6.

…A simple chance can kill, but it can save you as well.

One of the apartment doors flew open, and out popped a skinny boy clearly hurrying somewhere with a backpack in hand. He stopped halfway staring at the man in a black suit with a gun who was overcoming last three stairs to the platform in one giant leap.

Rodriguez stared at the boy for just one moment and then pushed him back into the apartment, pressing his hand to the boy’s mouth and closing the door behind them soundlessly.

Fortunately, the boy was not stupid – he froze, not trying to escape or to make a noise, but 005 still did not remove his hand from his mouth, trying to catch his breath as quietly as possible and listening to the sounds behind the door.

The echoing steps stopped somewhere nearby and then continued their ascend quickly. Tiago let out a breath, although there were not enough reasons to calm down just yet. The boy stood still. He was, as expected, scared, his whole body strained with tension almost to shivering. Rodriguez felt the boy’s rapid breathing on his hand.

005 fleetingly studied the hallway and the part of the room, visible in the open doorway. The furnishings were not new, but the flat looked clean and neat. The room looked even a little too neat for a teenager: only some crumpled clothes piled on the narrow bed alongside with a scattering of floppy disks. It was very quiet, only a clock on the wall ticked loudly; it seemed that no one else was at home.

The sound of footsteps ceased completely. Rodriguez released the boy, and he immediately turned around to face him, backing away. His frightened face showed that he was desperately thinking of a way out of his unfortunate situation. He must have realized that the door is not an option since the man was clearly chased by someone. In any case, the agent was blocking the way. The boy’s eyes darted to the phone hanging on the wall then to something down the hallway, and then he looked at the gun and the man’s face again. Tiago slowly pointed the gun up, raising his other hand in a calming gesture.

“We both do not want any trouble, right?” he said looking fixedly into boy’s eyes. The teen quickly glanced at his weapon safely pointing at the ceiling, his face calmed down just a little and he nodded.

“Sorry about that,” Rodriguez made a vast gesture referring to the situation as a whole and hid the useless gun. “In my defense, I can say that I am from the Secret Intelligence Service.”

It was obvious that the teen did not believe him. This wasn’t the part of the town where you expect to meet spies – more likely thugs engaged in some inter-gang squabbles. But why would a mobster lie that he is _a spy_ to an inconsiderable teenager?

“What’s your name?”

“Matthew,” the boy answered hoarsely then bit his lip, carefully studying the intruder.

“Matthew, I need Internet connection. Is here an Internet cafe nearby?”

The teen snorted involuntarily.

“In Norfolk Park? If only.”

This, of course, was no surprise to the agent.

“Back stairs?” 005 stepped further into the hallway throwing a glance towards the kitchen then back at the boy.

“No.”

The window then. Shouldn’t be a problem, they are just on the third floor. He looked at the window frame – the sash sliding up enough to escape.

Matthew licked his lips nervously and suddenly added:

“There is Internet in the school library. And actually I was just going there.”

Tiago gave him an intent look again. Each agent acts on intuition to some extent – pure analysis, strategic expertise and combat training are just not enough sometimes. Matthew returned the gaze almost defiantly, his fear displaced by curiosity. And for some reason Rodriguez was sure that the boy won’t call the police as soon as the agent leaves the apartment.

“Are Sheffield libraries open on Sundays?”

“ No. But I like to work when no one interferes,” for a moment it seemed to Tiago that the boy looked at him as if they were on the same team. 005 smiled slightly. Uneasy tension between them that was almost tangible, subsided.

Agent again, just in case, listened to the sounds behind the door, studying the teenager out of interest this time. Matthew was lean – verging on gaunt, eyes grayish green and tenacious, his dark slightly curly hair a complete mess.

“I smeared your jacket with blood. Here, on the shoulder.”

“Not something I wouldn’t be used to,” Matthew smirked, turned his head to the side, searching for the stain.

“Not used to keep your opinion to yourself?” agent asked mockingly.

He had already noticed nearly vanished black eye. Weak physique and, apparently, sassy temper is not the best combination for a teenager in this part of the town.

Matt shrugged his shoulders:

“I'm just too bloody clever. That can be annoying for the mentally less gifted.”

“Yes, that’s a perfect example of what I was talking about,” Tiago crossed the hallway and the room in just a few big steps, opened the window.

“You probably need a bandage,” Matthew said with uncertainty following the man into the room.

“No time. It's just a scratch. I presume, you mentioned the library not just to keep the small talk going, no?” the agent leaned out of the window, studied the outer wall and returned into the room looking at the teenager expectedly. “Aren’t you too eager to offer help to a man you clearly do not trust? I really don’t need additional problems from you.”

005 could show him his ID but he knew this wouldn’t convince the boy: he would most likely consider it a fake.

“You look nothing like a spy, of course,” Matthew once again cast an inquiring gaze at the agent. Bold, expressive features didn’t resemble an Englishman (his thick accent also proved him to be a foreigner). He had artistically longish dark hair, like he was some sort of actor, a gold earring, black shirt with a bit extravagant geometric pattern under his suit – and no jacket in spite of cold weather. “But you’re at least something fresh in this monotonous shit... Who’s after you?”

“Curiosity killed the cat, is that how an English saying goes?” Rodriguez climbed out of the window onto the ledge and turned to Matthew. “Okay then. In exactly 10 minutes get out of the apartment –  but not earlier. In 15 minutes we meet at the intersection two blocks from here to the right,” the agent made a wry face involuntarily: he hated working with this lack of data, when even the street names were unknown. “There's a gateway with a circular arch, meet me right beneath it. Got it?

“Kitchener Road, 3. Got it,” the boy nodded, lips tight, eyes focused.

 

After exactly 15 minutes when Tiago went under the arch, Matthew was standing there, pulling at the strap of his battered backpack.

“To the library then?” the teen’s eyes positively glowed, but he played it cool.

Tiago nodded, and as soon as the boy turned away, walking quickly ahead of the agent, he was unable to contain a fleeting smile.

He was just a little uneasy that he was getting the boy into all this, but the result has always been more important than the means. Frankly, such an absurd but at the moment quite necessary assistant would usually irritate 005; but the boy’s enthusiasm resembled Tiago himself ten years ago. Besides, how old is he –16-17 years old? When Tiago was 17 he was already at Her Majesty’s service, fighting with the help of codes and numbers behind a bulky CRT monitor.

Library door was closed as well as the entire school on Sunday, but Matthew shot a glance around and took the agent to the back entrance. He produced a key from his jacket pocket, which he apparently duplicated without asking, opened the door and slipped inside, Tiago following him. To the glass doors of the computer room he had a key as well.

“The machines are quite up to date, bought last year, Internet Explorer 3. So you shouldn’t have problems with the speed,” Matthew informed the man, sitting down to a nearby computer.

Tiago smiled vaguely, removing the neck strap with a flash drive. But when his large fingers started typing with surprising speed, his face froze, eyes focused only on the screen, as if he had forgotten about Matthew’s existence at all. Only a quarter hour later when he pulled the flash drive out of the back panel of the base unit, he finally looked at the boy’s computer screen.

“What. Is. This,” slowly asked Rodriguez, shuddering to a halt.

Matt's shoulders twitched as he closed the window immediately, switching to an Excel table.

“The principal asked me to help with the templates for timesheets,” he turned around, eyeing Tiago carefully with the most innocent look. But 005 knew what he just saw on the screen: a page of programming code.

The agent grabbed at his mouse, clicking the closed window, quickly scanned the rows of code and turned back at Matthew with a disapproving look:

“Are you planning on hacking ATMs?”

The boy turned pale, licked his dry lips:

“I just... had a bet with one nerd that I could write such a program... I wasn’t going to use it! Don’t look at me like that. I did not call the police as soon as you got out of the window, did I?”

“You wrote this yourself?”

Tiago looked at Matt, not even trying to hide his surprise, and the boy nodded gingerly. The program wasn’t something out of the ordinary, but it was rather complex software designed to overwrite the machine’s internal operating system. Slowly, but still surprising enough, Tiago’s lips stretched into a smile, his muffled chuckle turning into evident laughter.

Matt looked at the man as if he was mental, and Rodriguez even put his fist to his mouth, trying to stop laughing – what were the chances that the boy he so fortunately ran into is also a programmer?

“What's so funny?” asked Matt with a resentful frown, immediately forgetting his fright. “If something looks wrong here, it’s only because I haven't finished writing it yet...”

Rodriguez stopped laughing, abruptly becoming serious, and said gravely:

“Delete everything this instant. Even if you really weren’t planning on using it, someone else may do it for you.”

Matthew looked vexedly at the agent but didn’t dare to protest.

When his work became just a memory, he looked up with a sudden cheeky smile – Tiago realized that it was his habit to hide fear or lack of confidence behind audacity:

“I wrote it right then?”

With astonishing rapidity the agent’s face expression changed again and he patted the boy on the shoulder with a soft chuckle, but then said seriously:

“Don’t even think of messing with these things, if you have a head on your shoulders.”

He went to the exit, but stopped abruptly at the door, half turning to the boy again.

“My name is Tiago Rodriguez, and I wasn’t joking about the Secret Intelligence Service. See you later, Matthew.”

And he disappeared behind the door.

 

Matt stared after the agent, not noticing the warm smile that lit up his own face. For some reason, he wasn’t even the least bit upset about the destroyed program. He shut down the computer, picked up his bag from the floor and walked away, not forgetting to lock the door behind him.

Of course, it’s unlikely he will see this Rodriguez guy again. And even more unlikely that he is really a spy, not a criminal; but frankly Matt did not care. Today was the best day in the last five years, if not in his whole life.

 

† † † † †

 

There were four of them; they waited for him in the gateway through which he used to pass on his way home from school. Maybe Matthew could escape if he saw them in time but he was too absorbed in his own thoughts, music loud in his walkman. He became aware of his surroundings only when his headphones were roughly pulled off of his ears.

“Ryan, are you deaf?” Crowley sneered into his face. “I expect a bloody answer when I’m talking to you!”

“Sod off,” Matt muttered, trying to pull his headphones back.

“Easy, smart-ass,” Gibson grabbed him by the collar. “You think, since you’re teacher's bitch and you get an "A" for every shitty project, you can talk back to us?”

“It’s not really my fault if you have more spots than brain cells,” Matthew snapped, trying to pull Gibson’s hand away. If there had been any hopes that he would get off with a scratch, now they disappeared.

Suddenly they heard a man's voice calling them out, and the bullies reluctantly turned their heads. Matthew looked out from behind Crowley without much relief – even if someone will drive these scumbags away now, nothing prevents them from meeting with Matt later – and his eyes almost doubled in surprise. He saw none other than Rodriguez walking with a measured tread across the street. He wore a black jacket, dark suit, loud pattern shirt and had a heavy-looking leather briefcase in hand, overall looking far more relaxed than during their first encounter.

Gibson, the largest and obviously the stupidest of the hooligans, looked him up and down then glanced at his sidekicks and casually pushed Matthew away.

“And what’s your problem? Bugger off, poof!” Gibson puffed out his chest and took a step forward, spitting to the side. He was about the same height with the agent, though not as strongly-built, but still overly confident because of his gang.

Tiago slightly opened his jacket coming closer to the guy. Cocky expression was wiped off from Gibson’s face the moment he saw a gun hanging in its holster, and his friends stepped back in alarm.

Rodriguez released his jacket from his fingers and in a moment grabbed the guy by the throat; the rest of the gang scuttered off immediately.

“If I ever hear from Matthew, that you or one of your skunks...” agent raised his eyebrows and paused, hoping that he doesn’t have to bother ending his sentence. Gibson swallowed and nodded abruptly. Tiago let go, allowing him to join his fleeing mates.

“That was quite impressive,” Matt stepped closer to the agent, arranging the headphones around his neck and adjusting his battered blue scarf. “Thanks.”

He looked straight into Tiago’s eyes, feeling his ears starting to burn for some reason.

“I didn’t think you'd be back. Nice timing.”

Rodriguez carefully looked at him making sure he isn’t hurt.

“Judging by your temper, I could come any time to find you in trouble. Didn’t your father ever teach you not to mess with such guys?”

“My father ran off before I was born,” Matthew shoved his hands in his pockets. “And those jerks will bully me anyway, so what am I supposed to do – suck up to them?”

Tiago exhaled noisily expressing unreadable emotion.

“Where can we talk?”

“At my place,” Matthew cocked his head slightly to one side, looking at the man carefully. The pleasant surprise of the agent’s appearance has given way to certain caution. “What’s to talk about?”

“I would like to offer you a job.”

“Will I be able to refuse?”

Rodriguez let out a chuckle. He genuinely liked the boy more and more.

“Yes,” he answered in a serious but friendly tone.

 

They quickly came to the house Rodriguez already knew.

“My grandparents went visiting, so there will be no questions. Are you hungry?” Matthew asked casually, as if brought home just his classmate.

Tiago shook his head no as he sat down at the table. “Do you have coffee?”

“Instant,” Matt replied, feeling a bit guilty while taking the coffee tin from the cabinet over the sink. It's not cool to offer instant coffee when your guest is Spanish or something.

“Will do. Have you heard the latest news about Hong Kong?”

“The transfer of sovereignty to China? Yes, heard it on the telly just yesterday,” Matthew clicked the kettle on.

“I work in Hong Kong. I'm just for a couple of weeks in England, and my boss doesn’t really know... They all sit here, bound to listen to these bureaucratic rats! They don’t understand the severity of the situation, they don’t listen to me! That's why I have to do some things on my own to provide them with a peaceful transition. I need a little help, and I think you're smart enough for that,” Tiago threw an expectant look at Matthew.

The teen sat down at the table across from him.

“What kind of work can I possibly do for you?” he frowned.

“I am a programmer, and I am more often found working behind the monitor, than running in the streets with a gun,” he grinned with one side of his mouth. “If I would have been that kind of an operational agent, we would hardly have met like we did, me needing your help and all... So if I estimated your potential correctly you can indeed help me. Do you know about modular programming?”

“Of course,” the boy ruffled his already rumpled hair. “I started writing a couple of years ago, first in Pascal and Fortran 95, then Perl and Python. Recently started Ruby. If we need another language, I'm learning fast. What is our task?”

“So you do accept my offer, no?” Rodriguez raised his eyebrows.

“Basically, yes,” Matthew turned to reach for the kettle; his kitchen was so small he didn’t have to get up. He poured water into two cups, moving to Tiago the one with the coffee. “I have only one question. Are you in such severe lack of programmers that you are willing to work with a schoolboy you accidentally ran into?”

Tiago took a sip from his cup, leaned back in his chair.

“My grandmother was very religious, but I wasn’t really interested. However, I do believe in fate.”

He smiled, nodding, as if to reinforce his words, and it was hard to tell if he is being serious.

“And think about it, how easy is it to find a programmer in 15 days? Not easy at all. Just the criminal background check takes a week, and this is not the only thing you need to check. Only then stands the question of his computer skills. Besides, as you would understand, I can’t take anyone who has anything to do with MI6. And you – well, you don’t look like an agent or a Chinese spy, do you?”

“I don’t suppose anyone in China knows at all where Sheffield is, so you can be sure.” Rodriguez went on mentioning his relation to MI6 as a matter of course, but if he really was an agent, would he talk about it so openly? Not that it made his offer less interesting. “...That makes sense. I will work with you.”

“One more thing... I hope you understand that this is a dangerous job,” Rodriguez knew that adding it now was like giving a candy to a child and then asking whether he really wants it, because sweets can cause cavities. “I’ve noticed that you, like any normal teenager, are not happy with your life, but here you are risking _everything_.”

Tiago was watching Matthew closely, leaning forward. The boy did not look away.

“Well you can explain it to me better, tell me what is it that you do, and who can come after me. Then I will know what precautions to take. But I want to work with you. I agree in any case.”

“ _Who_ is not so important. If questions arise from our side, you won’t have problems as soon as I get in touch with them and explain that you are working for the good of England. If the Chinese come after you, at best, you will get killed. In either situation, the only thing you can do is to be invisible. And with that, as I have noticed, you have some problems. I hope you learn quickly,” Tiago lifted his briefcase onto the table. “Well, then this belongs to you.”

Matthew grimaced and said with a shrug. “You’re not a great conspirator yourself: demonstrating that you carry a gun to some street punks... They talk, too, you know,” but his hands were already opening the buckles.

He pulled out a black laptop with ‘Micron’ logo on the lid.

“Ooh,” Matthew exhaled excitedly, feeling with his fingers the disk drive and USB-port, and Tiago thought with a smirk, that it was more typical for a boy of his age to be so excited about unfastening his girlfriend’s bra.

“I started writing failsafe end-to-end protocols, but I don’t have enough time. Let's see how much you can write till Wednesday, if you are able to continue writing it at all. Consider it a test. While I am still in England, we will be meeting in a cafe: in the inner pocket of the briefcase you’ll find a cell phone, I will write time and address on Tuesday night,” the agent finished his coffee in a few big gulps and stood up.

“Right, I'll start today,” Matthew was able to finally look away from the precious laptop, checking for the cell phone, and looked up at Rodriguez. “Until Wednesday then. Don’t let the Chinese catch you.”

Tiago replied with a wry smile. “And you watch out for punks, who haven’t seen my big gun yet!” he chuckled leaving the kitchen. “See you later, _chico_!”

Matthew snorted, a wide smile on his face. He felt some unusual excitement, thoughtless euphoria of an adventure, which he believed, he had forgotten how to feel.

There was a sound of door slam in the hallway. Matt, forgetting the unfinished tea, took the laptop and briefcase to his room and began delving into the work.

 

† † † † †

 

The train journey from Sheffield to Leeds took an hour and a half, during which Matthew didn’t stop looking around cautiously, occasionally feeling the memory stick in the inner pocket of his jacket with his fingers.

Their meeting place was seven minutes away from the station – a small restaurant of Spanish cuisine, as Matthew already knew from its rather uninventive name La Tasca. The interior was matching: the dimly lit hall was decorated with dark wood and ethnic ceramic tile, with colorful wooden chairs;dried red peppers hanged from the ceiling. Visitors were few and Matthew immediately noticed the agent, who was sitting in the corner with a laptop.

“Hello,” Matt pulled out a chair, sat down beside him. He unbuttoned his jacket, took out the flash drive and held it out to Tiago. “Here. It’s ready.”

Rodriguez nodded greetingly and reached out for the drive, not taking his eyes off the screen and typing relentlessly with the second hand. Matt noticed that his consistently extravagant shirt kind of matched the surroundings. After completing his work in a minute, Tiago inserted the flash drive into the laptop and finally looked at Matthew.

“Ready? Like finished?”

“Yes, and I added something in your designs,” he coughed, noticeably nervous.

Tiago smiled, sipping his coffee.

“Are you hungry? Order something while I'm hacking you.”

Matthew didn’t think he was able to eat anything because of the nerves, so when the waitress approached their table, he asked for a coffee and turned back to Tiago, tensely watching his strong fingers fly over the keyboard.

Tiago got so carried away that did not notice the waitress at first and he had to call her back. “More coffee and pollo marbella, please.”

He smiled at the girl, but then his face became focused again, fingers continued pounding at the keys.

For a second or two, Matt thought what this pollo marbella might be, but then returned to watching Rodriguez anxiously. Another minute passed, then two, the waitress brought them coffee. May be it was a good sign, that Tiago was still unable to hack him. Matthew pulled his chair closer to the man, craning his neck to look at his screen.

The agent frowned more and more. A couple of times he stopped and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. Once he looked at Matthew, and there was a flicker of amusement in his eyes, though his face was still serious.

It wasn’t clear what he thought. Was he pleased that he couldn’t crack the code? Was he annoyed by that? Or – worst of all – was the code ridiculous bullshit?

“So what do you think?” he inquired impatiently after another five minutes.

Tiago stretched his lips in an unreadable emotion which could be anything – from irritation to a suppressed smile – and raised his index finger, telling him to wait. In half a minute the encoded file opened, though he was supposed to be irretrievably damaged.

“Fuck,” muttered Matthew. He took a sip of his lukewarm coffee and made a wry face. “I failed the test, right?”

His reaction caused a short bout of laughter.

“If I hadn’t opened the file before the waitress brought the food,” a plate with chicken in white sauce and garnished with peppers was placed on the table. “... I would have to send you to Hong Kong instead of myself.”

He pushed the plate to Matthew, smiling broadly.

“You should eat, you're so thin, that soon you won’t have the force to press the keys.”

“Just like my grandmother,” Matt snorted, but didn’t object, since he felt relieved and rather hungry. “I didn’t write utter crap then? Show me how you hacked it, I should make corrections...”

“I'll show you next time. We’ll meet this weekend, earlier than today – you shouldn’t walk around your block late at night. And I will add something to the program and explain to you all together.”

Tiago put his hand on the boy’s shoulder, looking straight into his eyes. Even through the jacket that Matthew never took off, he felt how thin and fragile his shoulder was.

“You coped with the work just fine,” he said softly, as if explaining to a child.

Matthew blinked and bit his lip, looking into the agent’s dark eyes.

Many touches would settle in his memory afterwards; but somehow that feeling of the broad hand on his shoulder lingered there for a long time. Even when the memory of his old blocked house in Norfolk Park almost vanished, and his unremarkable name – Matthew Geoffrey Ryan – remained only in the archive files, replaced by a single letter.

 

† † † † †

 

When Matthew received a message "Sheffield Station 20:00 minute wait," he was peacefully poking around in his codes, sitting with a cup of tea in the kitchen and totally not expecting that he would have to go somewhere today. He glanced at his watch and jumped up, clapping his laptop shut. He was almost shivering with a mixture of excitement and anxiety and he nearly spilled his tea on the computer.

They met in different places and at different time, but Rodriguez always warned him in advance. The last time Tiago told him he would have to wait until the next meeting for a few months. If there would be a next meeting at all. Matt heard nothing from him for four weeks, and the agent had to be in Hong Kong at the moment.

Matthew’s heart was pounding in his chest as he was running down the stairs.

At 19:53 it was beginning to get dark, the April wind blew raw and cold. Matthew pulled his jacket tighter around himself, cautiously looking around. There was no one else at Schiff square before the railway station.

He passed under the arch of the entrance to the station, when a familiar voice called him out. Rodriguez stepped out of the shadow of a nearby niche. He was wearing a black leather jacket, zipped up to the top, his dark hair tousled, his face looked pale, though it was hard to tell in the disgustingly yellow dim light. Something unusually uncertain was in his posture and movements, and Matthew suddenly felt cold inside, but not because of the weather.

“Hello,” Matt said warily and stood beside him, looking intently at his face. “Why did you call me out?”

Tiago took out a memory stick.

“Your latest work with my corrections. You’ll figure it out,” he said more quietly than usual, his voice muffled somehow. “Tomorrow I'm flying back to Hong Kong.”

He stepped to the side, staggered slightly and laughed, leaning on a column; for a second it seemed to Matthew that he was drunk.

“Hey, what's wrong?” Matt touched the sleeve of his jacket anxiously. “Are you all right?”

“A bit too much painkillers,” said the agent with a broad smile that didn’t reach his eyes. He slightly unzipped his jacket showing the edge of a bandage on his shoulder – he wasn’t wearing a shirt.

“They surfaced me, Teo,” he said seriously, bowing slightly to Matthew and taking him by the elbow. “My partner in Hong Kong is dead, they made him stumble like a schoolboy, _hijos de puta_ , one of us gave me up, there must be a traitor in MI6, someone intercepts my messages, cause there can be no other reason why M doesn’t answer...”

His face was very close, eyes glittered feverishly, and he spitted words out in such anger that Matthew took half a step back involuntary. Rodriguez froze, flaring his nostrils, but then his lips stretched into a sad laugh again. He weakened his grip on the boy’s elbow, the other hand, which froze in an angry pointing gesture too close to Matthew’s face, relaxed. Tiago ran his fingers through Matt’s heavy curls, rubbing his temple with his thumb.

“ _Dios_ , I must be really high since I’m telling you all this,” he said much quieter.

“No... it’s all right,” forced Matthew out, feeling his cheeks burn – whether because he was telling nonsense and nothing was all right, or because of these fingers, entangled in his hair.

“Look,” he spoke desperately, clutching the agent by the arm. “If I can do at least something, just tell me. I know the town very well, I can hide you so that no one will find. And I can contact MI6. Tiago, I can’t let them get to you.”

He didn’t even notice that he called the agent by the name for the first time.

“No, it's not your game, _chacho_ ,” an empty nervous smile again. “It was a mistake to meet with you here today, I hope no one will have to pay for it. I don’t know what was I thinking, damn pills...”

He took a step back, looking around, but his hand seemed reluctant to leave Matthew’s hair; Tiago’s fingers traced small circles on his skin unconsciously.

“But you didn’t come here for nothing,” Matthew’s narrow palm lay on the agent’s healthy shoulder. “I can not leave you alone. If you can’t contact the headquarters, at least let me try it. I'll tell them that you are in danger. Please. Nothing will happen to me, please...”

Matt always tried to behave like a "grown-up", but now he did not care that he begged him like a little kid. He had thought that it was only the work that interested him, the feeling of being useful and relevant; and only now he realized that after a dozen meetings this strange and dangerous man somehow managed to become very dear to him. Perhaps, more dear than any of his relatives or friends.

Tiago’s hand moved to the back of Matt’s head, then slipped out of his hair, gently grabbing the boy's shoulder. “Go home, destroy the SIM card in the cell phone. Don’t even think about looking for me, much less try to contact MI6.”

“No,” Matthew breathed out, realizing how childish it sounds. But everything inside him resisted the idea of just stepping aside and doing nothing.

“No,” he repeated stubbornly, looking into the agent’s eyes. “I _will_ see you again, and see you alive.”

Tiago smiled warmly, patting the boy’s shoulder reassuringly. “Of course you will, I'll contact you from Hong Kong, when all is settled down. You still owe me for that laptop.”

“Just don’t let me down,” Matthew tried to smile in response to his joke.

He had no doubt that Rodriguez was just lying to calm him down. But at the same time, he was an agent, wasn’t he? Surely he didn’t get into trouble for the first time, and there is a chance that he will get out of this alive... Although he wasn’t sure he believed in his own reasoning. He suddenly wanted to hug Tiago, to cling to him and never let go.

Rodriguez knew he might be able to fool Matthew, but he was definitely not fooling himself – his situation was bad, really bad. Almost for the first time during his spy career he was scared, though his fear was dulled by the haze of painkillers. It was as if he was afraid to let go of Matt, as if losing the tactile contact with him now meant losing contact with the world of the living, falling into the abyss, never to return.

His hand suddenly returned from Matthew’s shoulder to the back of his head, pulling him closer, and Tiago’s lips quickly pressed to Matt’s in a gentle kiss.

Matthew had never kissed a guy before and had never even thought of anything like that. The more surprising his reaction seemed: he didn’t jerk back or push him away. Only breathed abruptly, parting his lips slightly under the chaste kiss.

“Let me know,” he whispered then, stuttering. “When you are thorough with them.”

Tiago just smiled. Drunken courage or mindless amusement of a condemned man flashed in his eyes; and he quickly strode to the train, that was about to leave the station.

Matthew remained standing there against the wall, watching as he disappeared behind the sliding doors. That was the last time he saw Tiago Rodriguez.

 


	2. Opilado

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> still Pre-Skyfall

Q stared at the man sitting in front of him squinting a little behind his glasses. He had imagined this scene many times over the years. Even when he learned that Rodriguez was dead, he sometimes had dreams of meeting him again. But looking at the face of the former agent, he didn’t feel joy and relief as he did in his dreams. Something unfamiliar in the man’s eyes, this colourless hair and all over his appearance made Q feel more like in a nightmare.

“Your record was transferred to the archives, and your name was engraved on the Roll of Honour on the third floor of Building C. But, as I see, it was a bit early for that.”

Silva smiled, picking a piece of octopus with chopsticks from his plate, and Q felt unfamiliar coldness in his smile.

“Oh, right you are, there’s no honour in staying alive,” with a juicy smack, the tiny tentacle disappeared between his lips. “And you apparently did not listen to me about MI6. Well, congratulations on a successful career, Quartermaster!”

“Thank you,” Q said dryly. Maybe it was due to the initial shock, but he felt nothing except suspicion and unreasoned distrust. Sure, the specifics of his work made anyone a little paranoid; but still there is nothing straightforward in coming back from the dead. “My guess is, you have particular reasons for me to be here?”

“What led you here?” Silva raised his eyebrows flirtatiously. “Curiosity. I was curious to see you, too.”

He leaned back in his chair, eyeing the Quartermaster and nodding approvingly.

Q’s voice became a bit deeper, his terrible Yorkshire accent was gone. He wore glasses in a surprisingly retro-looking frame, messy curls were styled perfectly now, nails not bitten off anymore. Parka jacket reminded of the one he wore as a teen, only it cost 10 times more. Well ironed white shirt looked expensive, tie matched perfectly with his cardigan; classic steel watches gleamed on his wrist – unremarkable, except for the fact that they were worth several paychecks of an average London programmer.

“Perhaps, you were,” Q pressed his lips together. “It’s been thirteen years. Why now, all of a sudden?”

“You have changed,” Silva cocked his head slightly to the side, narrowing his eyes.

Q didn’t look much older; he always used to look younger than his actual age. But the change in his posture was striking: instead of an awkward teenager, as if ashamed of his long neck, there sat a confident man with impeccable demeanor.

“...Not so happy to see me, mmm?”

Q shrugged, smiling thinly.

“I've learned to control my excitement. Besides, I hardly recognized you,” that was a blatant lie, and he blinked nervously, looking away, when Silva replied with a reproachful glance. “What happened to you?”

The ex-agent sighed, poked at his food with chopsticks, then put them on a porcelain rest and leaned back in his chair again.

“I think I told you once that if the Chinese catch you, your best option is to get killed,” a creepy grin slowly appeared on his face. “Well, I wasn’t so lucky.”

Q suddenly realized why his smile is so different: his teeth had to be artificial – Tiago’s teeth were a bit shorter. It was strange that he still remembered it. His breath caught in his throat for a moment, he nervously turned the jug of soy sauce a few times with little unconscious movements.

“But you survived. Why haven’t you turned up at the headquarters?”

Silva stared at him as if he just said utter nonsense then choked out a snicker and threw his head back in a slowly rising laughter.

Finally calming down and wiping away a tear, he leaned over the table, his face becoming serious.

“I found out who turned me in, Teo.”

“Who?”

The question that escaped Q’s lips sounded much less indifferently than he would’ve liked. He slightly leaned towards the ex-agent.

Q tried to speak carefully, verifying every word. But when he heard this nickname – the name Tiago whispered at the railway station, desperate, out of control – the pattern broke down. There was a sudden ache in his heart and it began beating faster than it should, as if he had just finally realized _who_ was sitting in front of him.

“M,” said the ex-agent gravely, keeping his eyes on Q. Despite the lively facial expressions, Silva’s eyes did not express anything during the whole conversation, as if they were made of glass. Now, for the first time, they lit up with an emotion. “M turned me in.”

Hatred burned in his eyes.

The quartermaster straightened his back, receding in his chair.

“Why would she do it? You were one of her best agents, as I found out later.”

“I was _the best_ agent,” corrected Silva angrily, sitting up too, spitting out words. “She gave me up when I started hacking the Chinese without direct orders. I could provide peaceful transition, but she wanted to play it safe, get it done not with my help but bargaining... She betrayed me."

Q bit his lip not knowing what to say.

Silva began to seem to him distant, as an actor, pausing for the others to say their lines. It was like he was pretending to listen, to react, only because it was written in the script. Other actors could play well or not, confuse the lines, forget the words – but he just waited for his turn and continued the performance: smooth, realistic, perfect.

“You're an agent. You know the rules. You could not expect to be valued above the outcome of your operation...”

Q shook his head. Instead of a gradual recognition the man seemed to him more and more unfamiliar, but nevertheless, the business-like coldness with which he began the conversation, started to disappear.

“What have they done to you? Can you tell me?”

Silva smiled again, and it seemed to Q his smile became warmer.

“They tortured me,” he said, shockingly candid. Not afraid of pity, staring openly straight into Q’s eyes. “For five months I was kept in a room with no air, but I did not give up her secrets, even when I realized that she betrayed me...”

Q’s fingers gave a barely perceptible twitch, as if he was stopping his hand from stretching out to Silva’s.

“How did you manage to get out?” he kept questioning. His voice sounded hollow.

“You know what every agent has in his back molar?” asked Silva in a tone you tell riddles to children.

“Cyanide capsule. You'd be dead if you...”

“ And I was,” the ex-agent interrupted him, pouting his lips mockingly and slowly nodding. “I died there, on the dirty floor of a Chinese cell... But fate decided otherwise. It turns out useful sometimes to work beyond your brief: you can acquire, for example, rather helpful friends... And there is one quite simple antidoting agent for cyanide poisoning – glucose. Of course, it is better to use the specific antidote from a lab, otherwise the chances are very small, and the consequences are not pretty. But when there is nothing else at hand...”

Q frowned, trying not to get lost in his confusing story.

“Who saved you? There had to be severe damage to your throat, and...” he remembered Silva’s clearly artificial teeth and felt anxiously nauseous.

The ex-agent slightly leaned in to respond – with the same careless smile – but suddenly the words stuck in his throat, the smile faded. He let out a nervous sigh, quickly blinked, then leaned back and looked away.

And Q could not resist anymore. He reached across the table to cover the former agent’s hand with his own. The fingers of the man who now called himself Silva were cold.

“Tiago. Tell me everything. I didn’t know what happened to you for too long.”

His fingers twitched slightly when Q called him by his name, but the hand did not move.

“Cyanide burned all my insides,” he said quietly, his voice trembled. But when he looked up, a fleeting emotion that Q had no time to recognize once again gave way to anger. He paused and then withdrew his hand from under the Quartermaster’s fingers.

“There is a Chinese saying: you can forgive a killer, but not a traitor,” corners of his mouth went up in a smirk.

Q swallowed visibly. An idea came to his mind, perhaps a bit too late, that a person who experienced such a thing can’t be completely sane. He didn’t know whether he should ask him any more questions. Shock, compassion and concern were preventing him from thinking the logical way he was used to.

Silva studied his confused face for a moment, then laughed softly, as if there had been no heavy conversation, and waved dismissively.

“Oh, never mind all that, Q! The important thing,” he gently took the Quartermaster’s hand, his voice soft and insinuating. “...The important thing is – we are both here right now. Mmm?”

Unstable. Potential threat.

Those words popped up in Q’s mind as a warning screen on the monitor. He tried to focus on this warning, tried not to let his memories and pity cloud his perception of the situation. Working in the Intelligence service requires a certain type of thinking, and if eight years of rapid career in MI6 were any indicator, Q had developed it successfully. He was used to it as to a convenient programming language: in each case a clear algorithm. Everything is under control, thoughts, emotions, actions. Now this system was falling apart, and all because Silva – Tiago – wasn’t talking to Q. He spoke to Matthew Ryan, dragged him from the depths onto the surface of his consciousness, turning upside down everything in his path.

“Why exactly am I here?” he looked the man in the eyes, not withdrawing his hand from Silva’s.

The ex-agent shrugged, tilted his head to the side; his fingers began drawing subtle patterns on Q’s skin.

“You can't clap with one hand.”

Ah, here it is. At least one clear bit that fits into the logic.

“So you do want something from me.”

Just don’t pay attention to his touch. Remember your trainings.

“What is it?”

“Ooh, Matthew, you're breaking my heart with this business approach,” Silva squeezed his hand lightly and pouted in imitation of hurt feelings, but then added seriously: “ They trained you well. You're a clever boy, you understand what I want already, don’t you?”

“I suppose, you want revenge,” Q answered. Such a well-known human need. Some even call it an instinct. “And I can’t say it’s not your right. But why do you think I'm going to help you?”

Silva squeezed his hand again, leaning forward closer, almost standing up from his chair.

“Oof, where do these accusation come from? When did I ever get you involved in my mess, hmm?” he broke down into laughter, leaning back a little.

“Do you think I need your help?” his voice sounded patiently lecturing, as if he was talking to a naive child. “Look, you – the Quartermaster, who shouldn’t even stick your nose out of MI6, whose name no one should know – _pooff!_ \- you sit here, where I want, when I want. And you think I need your help to get to M, a public figure, whose whereabouts are known not to just the special services and the police?”

“What do you want then?” Q grimaced, stung by the truth: it was really stupid of him to agree to this meeting. “A nice chat in a restaurant, long time no see? There is no guarantee that I didn’t tell anyone where I was heading, and you know it. If you decided to meet with me, it means you have no other options, and you are clinging to any chance there is.”

He knew he shouldn’t provoke the ex-agent. But he couldn’t bear Silva looking at him as an idiot who walked right into his trap.

“Oh, you still haven’t learned who you can talk back to, did you?” Silva cooed, and pressed his lips together.

Q only raised his eyebrows quizzically as if saying “so am I supposed to be afraid now?”. His face showed nothing except for this sarcastic expression, but his hand, still clenched in Silva’s, soaked treacherously. Realizing this, Q swallowed and blinked nervously.

Raoul's face suddenly softened as he looked down, shifted Q’s hand from one hand to the other.

“You are afraid of me,” he gazed at Q genuinely surprised, his eyes flickered, quickly moving from one eye to the other and back.

“I do not have the slightest reason for that!” snapped the Quartermaster and pulled his hand back, irritated even more. He hated to find himself in such situations. Hated to leave his laptop, with which he was stronger than anyone else, and no one could confuse him.

“ I’m scaring you,” as if not hearing him, Silva said thoughtfully.

But, breaking out of this momentarily stupor, he looked at the young man with a new expression. And Q held his breath involuntarily: for the first time during their conversation he saw Tiago in Silva’s eyes.

“I'm not going to ask for your help, Q. I just want you not to get in my way.”

It was strange to see him speaking openly after all these allusions and grimaces, Q didn’t even try to hide his surprise.

“We’ll see how it goes,” he said after a moment. “I have duties, you know, and I’m going to attend to them. Unless... you happen to be so much better than me, that I simply will have nothing to oppose you.”

Raoul smiled.

“Well, it is, at least, fair.”

Q nodded, looked down.

“I suppose we understood each other,” his fingers slid over the table top in a subtle caressing gesture. “Nice seeing you alive,” the Quartermaster jerked his chin up. “I told you then, didn’t I?”

The ex-agent gave him an uncertain look, and some anxiety, like an obsessive desire, flashed in his features for a brief moment.

“Until later, Q.”

“See you on the barricades,” Q rose from his chair, glancing again at the heavy face of former 005, his unnaturally blond hair and went to the door of the scantily lit restaurant, fighting the urge to look back.

 

† † † † †

 

“So, tell me about your daily life, Mr. Rodriguez. Describe everything that comes to mind: events, colors, smells...”

“I know, I know, your tests don’t change from year to year, every time I tell the same stuff,” Tiago interrupted the MI6 psychologist evaluator, waving his hand impatiently.

“A formal check is in order,” the psychologist answered patiently. “You've always had this creative attitude to our tests. If I remember correctly from your file, as a child you wanted to be a writer, is that right?”

The agent only smiled in response, rolling his shoulders with put-on embarrassment.

“Every morning I wake up with the feeling that my house was destroyed, and I lie among the wreckage in malaria-filled jungle, which Hong Kong once was,” he sighed; his voice sounded as if he really was dictating a book. “The city is still breathing this dangerous moisture, which can not be defeated with the numerous fans. And my shirts start to smell of mold, if the old Filipino maid forgets to ventilate the closets.”

“Does it remind you of the place where you grew up?”

“Only when my eyes are still closed. Because Hong Kong looks nothing like Mexico or Belize... At 6 am the city begins to smell of herbs and smoke. The Chinese eat too much for breakfast, as if they doubt that they will get something later. But the local Chinese have already forgotten hunger and fear. They are surrounded by luxury boutiques, neon lights, giant skyscrapers... All glass, it’s good for some positive energy – they have all the multi-million-dollar projects designed according to Feng Shui. And only the refugees from the mainland bring with them the hideous smell of rice vinegar, that reminds about the terrible moments of Hong Kong history...”

 

† † † † †

 

Now Tiago – _"Raoul, my name is Raoul"_ – usually woke up in a viscous gray haze, which hardly could be called consciousness, drenched in sweat: the result of painkillers and sleeping pills, without which he wasn’t able to sleep at all. He rarely dreamed, or he didn’t remember his dreams – he was glad he didn’t, because his dreams were mostly nightmares. But the reality felt like a monotonous prolonged dream. The hallucinations almost stopped (still in the hospital the physician explained to him in bad English that his hallucinations are not the result of their pills, but one of the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, which occurs even in people who have never used any strong drugs), but unwanted memories – another symptom of PTSD – continued to suddenly collapse on him. Any little thing – a smell, a sound or an image – could suddenly bring back a sickeningly vivid, ugly scene.

 _Our greatest enemy is that we do not believe in what happens to us._ And Raoul did not believe at first. For almost a year in those moments when he was able to think coherently he denied what had happened to him – in rare days of clearing, breaking free from drug- induced half-sleep and constant pain. His mind searched for an answer, a reason, an excuse: he couldn’t have been just thrown away as used material, there must have been a mistake... The denial then changed into self-doubt. He started looking for a cause in himself, trying to figure out where did he get it wrong, what was his fault. But one day he suddenly realized that the answer to the eternal question "why me?" doesn’t exist. It wasn’t his fault; and with each new day spent in pain deep in his heart grew something black and grim.

Complete inability to experience any emotions was also something new to him. This emotional catatonia was disturbed only by outbursts of uncontrollable rage. The same doctor warned him about aggression as yet another symptom, but he noticed it himself only when he beat almost to death a man, who sold him the wrong cigarettes. At first he tried to fight it, but soon he stopped caring.

His memory reacted to trauma in a rather strange way. The desire to forget everything was natural, and the memories became paler, but to forget all completely was impossible. And his brain, as if not satisfied with disposing of the memory of betrayal and captivity, continued on. The white void in his head was expanding, swallowing years of service in MI6, hard time of his adolescence...

And a few years later, he was surprised to realize that from the life of Tiago Rodriguez he remembers almost nothing except for infinitely distant, sunny days on the island of his grandmother. Of course, he was not suffering from amnesia and could remember most of the facts of his biography; but to imagine, to see again in his head he could only his early childhood.

Or not. There was another small memory: a skinny kid from Sheffield, Matthew Ryan, settled in his head like some sort of a psychological anchor. Whether it was because Matthew has become the reference mark, the last glimpse of life before falling into the abyss, or for some other reason, but the former agent’s thoughts wandered back to the boy sometimes over the years.

And although he was not surprised when ten years later he found Matt among the staff of MI6, Raoul could not help thinking about the fate that brought them together again.


	3. Morado

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And here we have porn :3

It was high time Q took a vacation. Among the indicators was recent lack of concentration (strong tea and huge intakes of vitamin C did not help anymore) as well as the conclusion of MI6 annual medical examination. The ophthalmologist informed him about the decrement in his visual acuity that Q had noticed himself, thank you very much, and before he could say anything, deftly instilled some stinging eye drops, forbidding to return to computer work for the rest of the day. It was too late to protest; and as the doctor scribbled his report, Q, blinking furiously and wiping tears caused by suddenly too bright light, realized that an unexpected vacation is inevitable. After all, he didn’t even have even a proper weekend in almost two years.

His air travel experience was rather poor and extremely unpleasant, so Q preferred more down-to-earth transportation. Looking at the map, he chose the shortest way to the continent. The next day in the early morning he took a train from St Pancras railway station to Paris. He wandered around the city a bit, chatted with the custodian at Sainte Chapelle, secretly proud that he still managed to speak decent French, and in the evening his TGV left the East Railway Station for Strasbourg. Q has never been there before; he was going to spend a day there, maybe two, and then go further, to Luxembourg or Cologne, or perhaps straight to Amsterdam. Q resisted the temptation to take his laptop out of the case and get back to work but it was not because of his sight. He suddenly wanted to live a life of another person for a week. He woke up later than usual the next morning; and looking at the dark wooden beams, that crossed the white ceiling of his room in the Cour De Corbeau hotel, he felt that he was beginning to capture that feeling. He rolled over on the king-sized bed and got up, opened the window, hanging out almost up to his waist. Bright sunny weather, colorful tiled roofs of half-timbered houses, an overgrown linden tree in the tiny courtyard, distant voices, speaking French – it was a completely different world all together. Plunging into it was like slipping into a video game with excellent graphics. Only the effect of presence was more powerful... and yes, he wasn’t going to think about anything related to computers.

When forty minutes later Q was walking along the waterfront of Quai des Bateliers, he didn’t stand out from other people passing by: just an average guy, 20-something, wearing jeans, a white T-shirt and a jacket.

He passed a bus stop, admiring flecks of sunlight on the water, when suddenly a young woman crashed into him on her way to catch the bus, goods scattering out of a paper bag.

“Ah! Excusez-moi monsieur, je suis très maladroite, excusez-moi,” she began chirping apologies, rushing to pick up her shopping.

He helped her, apologizing too, picked up a can of corn and a couple of apples; some of the passers-by were watching them – all in all, it looked pretty much like a perfect scene from a romantic comedy. The bus shut the doors and left; the girl thanked Q with an embarrassed smile, taking from his hand the last package.

“Merci beaucoup...”

“Pas de problème,” he smiled at her.

Another bus pulled up, and she dashed towards it, cheerfully waving Q goodbye.

Q followed the bus with his eyes, smiled to himself and was about to walk on, when he noticed keys lying on the pavement. They must have fallen out of the girl’s pocket. He picked them up and read the address on the fob: 22 Avenue de la Forêt Noire.

He had to return them. As GPS on his smartphone informed him the location was close; a 16 minutes walk, according to the navigator. But the girl’s bus went in the opposite direction, so there can be no one at home. It's probably best to come over later in the evening, and if she wasn’t there yet, he can always give the keys to her neighbors... He really started to behave like an ordinary guy who met a pretty girl at the bus stop. It had to be the influence of the new and peaceful surroundings and his own determination to let himself relax: so that his usual caution verging on paranoia left him.

Q wandered around the city till the evening. He looked at the cathedral’s astronomical clock, listened to the gospels of some American pilgrims, then reached the European quarter by water bus, returned and walked the narrow streets of Little France. When it was almost 6, he went to University Square and walked a bit, then finally turned to Avenue de la Forêt Noire.

 

Building number 22 was twins with neighboring 24; both of them standing out from the rest of the street facades. Q did not know much about architectural styles, but it was obvious that the house is older than the surrounding buildings for a century or two. Three floors, excluding basement, a mansard with ornate decoration of one of the dormer windows; small dark brick and limestone. Two old cars were parked nearby, and someone's battered bicycle was chained to the bars of a basement window.

Q approached the carved door made of heavy wood with a glass window whitened by time. He pressed the electric bell which looked rather out of style and waited. When no one answered, he pulled at the handle – the door was open.

He went inside. In front of him a marble staircase went up, lit by two old dim lamps on the wall.

“Est-ce qu'il y a quelqu'un?” he asked loudly and stepped a couple of steps up.

From the second floor came a vague sound of music.

Apparently, he had to go up, or he just wouldn’t be heard. The stairs went right into a spacious living room, furnished in the old-fashioned style that suited the facade. Q stopped near the stairs, taking the keys out of his pocket. Music flowed from the next room – a dining-room, seen through an arch. He took a few steps and then stopped abruptly: piano passages, that sounded all this time, were only a prelude: the tone of the last key died, in the sudden silence Q heard the beating of his own heart; and then, as if his heart’s echo, a soft drum roll started a lazy rumba. The sound was voluminous and rich, but with a barely perceptible hiss – it must have been an old vinyl record.

Q felt a strange, groundless need to throw the keys on the nearest surface and leave as soon as possible. But he didn’t do it – his legs were already carrying him towards the source of the music.

In the center of the dining-room was a large table with different in their shape and upholstery antique chairs, cupboards with dishes and crockery stood against the wall. On a small table, covered with a white knitted cloth, a brass gramophone played. But it seemed that no one lived here for many years, as if Q walked in a museum. He stopped indecisively a few steps away from the archway separating the two rooms.

“Rumba. The dance of love,” a familiar voice said from behind Q.

The Quartermaster turned around – in the archway, stretching his lips into a smile, stood Silva. Q had almost got used to calling him that.

“...But not everyone knows that of love unrequited,” Raoul stepped into the room. “A story old as the world itself... The woman uses her charm to dominate over the man. Teases him, seduces, and then – _pooff!_ – throws him aside, runs away from him. The man tries to dominate though his physical advantage. He meets the erotic movements of the woman with the desire to possess and seeks to achieve this through his strength. But he doesn’t succeed.”

They just stared at each other for a couple of seconds, but then Q looked away for a moment, shaking off the involuntary stupor.

“Quite a clever trick,” he looked defiantly into the ex-agent’s eyes again, holding out the keys. “And here I hoped I have a vacation.”

“Oh, did I spoil it?” sincere regret appeared on Silva’s face. He reached for the keys, but only covered them with his palm over Q’s own.

Q pulled his hand back as if burnt; the keys fell to the floor.

“What do you want?” he said through his teeth in anger that surprised even him.

Silva, squatting down, picked up the keys and carefully placed them on a tiny phone table by the wall.

“Teo, I just wanted to see you,” he replied in a soothing tone, not stepping closer. “You're so unexpectedly turned out to be almost next door, so I thought...”

“Nonsense. You would not arrange this without a reason,” Q took a breath, trying to pull himself together. His chest tightened, reactions were spinning out of control.

“And why not?” Silva made a small step forward. “Why not? Have I ever lied to you?”

“No,” Q had to admit it. He involuntarily took a step back: like in a dance, a little voice in his mind remarked sarcastically. “But we're not the kind of people who can meet without a certain goal.”

“You really think so?” Raoul asked sadly, taking another step forward. “And what might be the goal, hmm? You're too used to this system, where everyone is just using you, gives you orders and awaits their execution, where nothing happens without a reason...”

“You fight against this system, so you play by it’s rules,” this time Q stepped towards him, breaking the pattern – they were face to face now. “And I'm a part of it, and therefore your enemy. I have no reason to believe that you perceive me differently. I'm not that sentimental, Tiago...or how should I call you?”

“Call me what you want,” said Silva very quietly. His hand gently cupped Q’s face, the dark eyes gleaming beneath thick eyelashes in the early evening gloom. The room was illuminated only by a dim lamp on the far wall.

It’s been thirteen, no, almost fourteen years. Fourteen fucking years; and Q couldn’t really say that all these years he thought only about the missing agent. So why, when this man appears in his life again, when he touches him, his heart is pounding so fast in his chest and a curl of heat surges through his body?

“I’m not that sentimental, too,” continued Raoul with a bitter smile and caressed Q’s cheek with his thumb. “I understand that you can’t like me now. I am no longer the man I was.”

“I never knew who you really are,” Q could not stop his hand rising in a mirroring gesture to Silva’s cheek. His other hand slipped round the ex-agent’s neck, touching the lifeless bleached hair. “I still see you as you once were, Tiago. And I can do nothing about it. You know that better than me.”

“I don’t,” Silva murmured lowering his eyelids, his attentive gaze never leaving Q’s face. He finally let his hand to get into the thick dark curls, the second hand removed Q’s glasses and put them without looking at the same table as the keys. “I don’t know, tell me.”

And Q felt all the key concepts and principals of his life lose their meaning as a word repeated too many times in a row, when it becomes just a meaningless combination of sounds.

Profession. Duty. Responsibility. Caution. Q.

Q disappeared, leaving Matt Ryan from an industrial town somewhere in Yorkshire. And Matt spoke in a quiet hoarse voice.

“I don’t care what you call yourself. I would recognize you even if you changed your face. I don’t care if you are the enemy... how this all will end for me. Don’t ask how it happened, just take it for granted. I’m not able to fight it anymore. I don’t want to.”

“Then surrender,” Silva whispered in his ear. His hand moved to the back of Q’s head, the second bracing his waist. Hot lips fleetingly nipped at his earlobe, and then gently dug into his neck right under the jawbone.

Q gasped, arousal hitting him hard in an instant spasm; and it was almost embarrassing, he was not a teen anymore to react so strongly... He didn’t care. He ran his fingers through Silva’s hair, his other hand drifting down his back; and even through the fabric he felt how hot his skin was. He clung to the ex-agent, yielding, moulding against his body.

Silva's hands gripped him tighter, clutching at his clothes, rushed to pull up his jacket and shirt in abrupt movements then caressed his bare skin gently. His lips left hickeys on Q’s neck, sweeping down to the clavicle. Raoul pinned him against the wall, pressing to the smooth terracotta-red plaster; and his face froze in front of Q’s own.

The Quartermaster looked for a second into his darkened eyes, breathing heavily, and then grabbed him by the collar, pulling him closer, pressing his lips to the man’s wide mouth. Silva opened his lips, hungrily returning the kiss; and when Q close his eyes and slid his tongue inside, he felt the hard and alien material of the prosthesis.

Silva pulled away abruptly, breaking the kiss and looking into his eyes again, cupping Q’s face with both hands.

“It’s all right,” Q whispered, stroking gently Silva’s cheek, brushing his lips with his thumb. With the other hand he undid Raoul’s belt in two short jerks and pulled the zipper down, fingers sliding beneath silk fabric of Silva’s underwear. “Come here.”

The ex-agent chuckled silently, thrusting into Q’s hand, and the chuckle turned into a guttural moan, hips twitched reflexively. He leaned passionately to Q’s lips again, tongue sliding deep inside. Q moaned into his mouth, wrapping his slender fingers around Silva’s hardening cock, slowly stroking up and down. He didn’t even try to press to the man closer, to do something about the nearly painful sensation in his own pants. He just wanted Silva to lose it, to go mad with desire. To see him lose all self-control – just like the Quartermaster himself.

Silva clutched his hair in a fist, the other hand grabbed his jacket, roughly pulling it off, tongue fucking his mouth. Q’s hand slipped from Raoul’s cock to release his arm from the sleeve, and Silva rubbed their groins together in one sweeping movement, making the other man moan desperately because of such scarce friction through jeans.

Q wriggled out of his jacket, and Raoul arched back, pulling away only to strip him out of his T-shirt. The Quartermaster began to unbutton the patterned shirt swiftly, then pressed against the ex-agent’s broad chest, skin to skin, hot palms gliding over his back, pulling the shirt off to the floor. He felt countless scars under his fingers: smooth slightly convex lines and erratic branched grooves. Q spread his legs, letting Raoul in between, arching into him shamelessly, and Silva sucked a bruising kiss into sensitive skin at the base of his neck. Q felt his hands all over his body, caressing, studying every small part they could reach; and the blood throbbed in the rhythm of rumba in his temples.

Raoul lifted him effortlessly, sucking air with a hiss through bared teeth when Q wrapped his legs around his waist, rubbing their groins together.

Just a few steps, and Q was on his back on a large sofa in the living room, with Silva hovering over him, licking, dragging soft lips across his skin, mouth wide open, as if there wasn’t enough air. His wet kisses trailed down, and Q’s lean stomach flinched under the touch of Silva’s sure hands, fingers tangled frantically in the blonde hair.

There was something wild and obscene in the way Silva caressed him, as if it was a predator, licking him with his long wet tongue; at any second his mood could change, and he would pierce the flesh with razor-sharp teeth. Under Silva’s heavy hands Q’s own body no longer obeyed him, and Q moaned lewdly, writhing under the ex-agent. He had no idea that he could be like this, that he was capable of wanting someone so much it hurt, drove him insane and made him forget about shame.

Silva chuckled breathlessly, tickling his ribs, unbuttoned his jeans, and then with graceful plasticity pulled himself up, sitting down on his knees at Q’s feet, taking off his shoes. Everything was soft and blurry without glasses, but Q saw that Raoul didn’t stop even for a second watching him with burning eyes; and this gaze made his stomach clench with fear and torturously pleasant anticipation at the same time. Another couple of movements –  and Q was completely naked, with Silva whispering into his ear.

“Have you ever done it with a man?”

“No,” he confessed, kissing the muscular neck. Silva had his own, musky scent; Q tried to remember the smell of Tiago’s leather jacket, but he couldn’t. “And you? How many times?”

“More than you would have thought,” chuckled Silva. He sat down on his knees again, pulled out from his already discarded trousers a foil package of lube and ripped it with his teeth. “Turn over.”

“I could have assumed so, since lube is among the necessities that you carry in your pockets,” Q snorted, trying to distract himself from increasing nervousness, feeling too exposed and vulnerable. He was not used to undress in the light – his body wasn’t something he could be proud of: skin too pale, ribs showing, no relief muscles or any visible change in the last ten years. He rolled onto his stomach, revealing a slender back with a small birthmark under the prominent shoulder blade and, despite the angularity of his torso, a surprisingly round line of buttocks.

Raoul sank down slowly, pinning Q with his body, then leaned on his elbows, redistributing the weight; the Quartermaster flinched slightly because of an unknown and unexpected sensation of a hard cock touching his ass.

“Shh, relax,” Silva nuzzled his neck affectionately. “You need to relax...”

Q drew a quiet breath and spread his legs – his mind immediately protested against this move, but Q ignored it. However wild seemed the idea that he is going to fuck you, you can’t fool yourself. You wanted this all along – to be pinned under his weight, face down, his hot breath on your neck. Even long ago, when you were a shy kid and didn’t really understand what's happening to you, you wanted it.

He brought his hand back, clutching Silva's neck.

“Come on,” he whispered hoarsely, demanding.

He heard a breathless laugh, felt it on his neck.

“You don’t know how beautiful you are,” Raoul muttered into hot sensitive skin, his hand gently stroking his side and caressing his buttock. “…how long have I wanted to touch you... to make your breath hitch in your throat.”

A slippery finger slowly circled the ring of tensed muscles.

“Your long, thin neck, soft pale skin... you always seemed so fragile... as if one wrong move can break you.”

The finger abruptly slipped inside.

Q winced slightly, trying to resist the natural impulse to pull away. He closed his eyes and tried to relax, allowing the slick finger go deeper into him, to touch him where no one ever touched.

“And how long...?” he asked. He wanted to hear the answer, and it didn’t matter whether it would be honest.

“Second of March, Park Square,” Silva’s voice sounded detached, and Q reminded himself about trained memory of an agent, but his heart skipped a beat.

“You were cold, and I put my jacket on you,” he licked his neck, the first finger joined by a second.

Q’s whole body shuddered, a new wave of heat coursed through him ending with a sharp spasm between his legs. Of course he remembered their most unusual meeting, as he remembered all of their meetings in 1997. Silva told him exactly what he wanted to hear, and he probably knew it. But what the hell did it matter anyway? The illusion that Tiago wanted him even then was too sweet not to believe in it.

“Mmhm,” he let out a small laugh or a groan. It was a little painful already, but he just bucked into Silva’s hand, feeling the broad knuckles slip past the tight rim.

“My boy,” Raoul muttered softly. “Ever so impatient.”

He vigorously scissored his fingers, and the pain became sharper. Q gasped, pressing his forehead against the cushions. But he was ready to endure much more, just to hear the affectionate words that no one ever said to him. Sigmund Freud certainly would have something to say about a boy who grew up without a father, but Q, despite his usual urge to analyze everything, didn’t want to do that now. As the third finger inside made him want to whine, he wondered how it would feel when they would be replaced by Silva’s cock. But instead of making him more nervous, that idea just made him moan with desire.

“Come on,” he whispered brokenly. “Can’t wait any longer.”

“Shh, I don’t want to hurt you,” Raoul leaned on the elbow shifting his arm and seizing his shoulder in a gesture, that was intended as soothing, but the convulsive grip just made it clear that he was much more aroused than Q could expect from the patient movements of his fingers.

“I don’t care,” Q groaned, no longer controlling what he was saying because of the hot blinding need. He turned his head to the side and licked at the fingers curled around his shoulder, squirming, lifting his hips upward, trying to press to Silva even more closely. “I’ll go insane if you don’t fuck me right now.”

Silva let out a growl, his hips twitched uncontrollably, fingers disappeared; and Q felt Raoul’s cock driving into him.

He bit his lip almost to draw blood, fingers clutching the sofa cushions so that the nails went white. It felt as if he was tearing in two, but he guessed, it probably couldn’t be otherwise. Despite of the pain it seemed to him, that he was able to come just from the ragged sounds that were breaking out of Silva's throat and his hot hands that gripped him tight. Raoul slowly sank into him almost to his balls, then moved back – Q squinted his eyes, but when Silva thrust his hips forward again, his cock suddenly dragged against the sensitive spot that shot sharp bolts of pleasure though Q’s body. Q gasped in a high voice, shook his head.

“You like it, _cielito_?” Silva muttered hoarsely between ragged gasps, squeezing his shoulder tighter, and then in an easy stroking motion placed his other hand on his throat.

“Y-yes,” Q licked his lips and moved his arm back, clutching Raoul’s thigh and wriggling, lifting his hips to meet Silva’s thrusts. The man increased his rhythm and as he was pounding Q into the sofa, the Quartermaster realized that he really was turned on by this unfamiliar feeling of being taken.

“I like how you do it,” someone whispered in his voice. “I like the way you fuck me...”

The hand around his throat tightened a little, but not so as to prevent him from breathing.

“Look at you, Teo,” Raoul whispered in his ear between breathless shallow gasps. “…look, how much you want me ...how you buck into me, forgetting all shame... my beautiful boy.”

His hand wrapped around Q’s leaking cock, starting to move in the same merciless rhythm as his hips, making him forget the last remnants of pain. Raoul hammered into him relentlessly, without stopping, and with each thrust in Q’s body grew unbearable, excruciating pleasure. He wanted to groan loudly, and he did, groans breaking into screams, when everything around darkened into sizzling haze.

Silva's hand moved from his throat to his lips, two fingers slipping into his mouth, pressing at bitten red lips, slightly pushing at the tongue, making Q’s breath hitch with a sob. He closed his lips around the fingers without a thought, sucking them, lapping with his tongue.

“I want you to come,” the hot moist breath touched his ear. “Come for me, Teo.”

Another two forceful thrusts inside him, and he shuddered, arching and sucking air in one big frantic gasp. The tight muscles clenched down around Silva, making him shove erratically just a few times more and stiffen with a muffled groan, coming inside of him, gripping Q’s arms and biting the sensitive flesh where neck meets the shoulder.

Q groaned weakly in response, feeling him pulsing inside. When Silva finally relaxed his convulsing grip and collapsed on top of Q, hot and heavy, the Quartermaster had no strength left to even try to move under him or open his eyes. It was hot, uncomfortable but somehow perfect. Probably, he felt much better than he should have felt.

Silva didn’t move for half a minute, stilling his breath gradually, then slowly shifted his weight onto his elbows, carefully slipping out of Q. Q sucked air through his teeth, wincing at an unpleasant burning sensation, felt hot come leaking from him.

Raoul kissed his neck tenderly, his finger slowly penetrating his oversensitive hole, causing his whole body to shudder, then moved his hand lazily down, drawing a slippery line on the inner side of his thigh.

Q rolled over, sucking in a sharp breath because of the uncomfortable feeling inside, and embraced Silva by the neck with one hand while the other stroked his forehead, moving away wet with sweat strands of blond hair.

“I wonder when I'm able to walk normally again,” he said hoarsely with a crooked smile. Too many things happened in this last hour that should not have happened at all; his thoughts were too confused, and he wasn’t able to come up with anything better than this.

Silva laughed, cupping his cheek, his index finger tracing the corner of his lips.

“Not tomorrow at least.”

“Shit,” Q embraced him with his second hand, slid his fingers over the broad back. “Well, at least it was worth it.”

They talked, as if they were just ordinary casual lovers; it couldn’t last long, but Q clung to these moments between them when all seemed so simple.

Silva gently kissed his forehead and rose from the sofa, put on his boxers.

Q, to his own surprise, didn’t care any longer that he was lying naked and sticky with sweat and come – a pleasant fatigue washed over his body, and any movement seemed to bring discomfort, so he just mumbled with a sleepy smile.

“Do what you want, I’m not moving.”

Raoul carefully picked him up and without further explanation carried him up the stairs. And Q didn’t want to fight the inadequate sense of calm, as if everything was all right. Tiago – or Silva, already an alien and unknown man? – still continued to be closer to him than anyone whom he had ever known. It was more than foolish and dangerous, but all in all, what could happen? Would he kill him? Just as well he might get hit by a bus or die of a sudden cardiac arrest, or get a bash on the head, returning home late at night. So being afraid, in general, was meaningless… Q tried to stop thinking altogether, feeling that all logic has left him and he doesn’t make sense whatsoever. He embraced Raoul's neck, head on his shoulder, looking at him through his long eyelashes and muttered.

“It's funny how I just love looking at you.”

Already half asleep, he felt his body sliding into cool sheets, and then stroking touch of a wet towel on his skin.

He fell asleep with a long-forgotten, childlike sense of carelessness.

 

When he woke up, he could not remember where he was for the first couple of seconds and then opened his eyes abruptly, because he thought that he had overslept his work. Only defocused emptiness of a white ceiling appeared before his eyes, but the space was immediately identified as unfamiliar. He started rolling to his side, but stopped as a sharp pain pierced his lower back. Then he turned just his head and saw Silva’s face – he didn’t sleep, eyes looking at him attentively. Q blinked and squinted, trying to focus his vision. All that didn’t matter yesterday reappeared in his brain as a persistent warning. All has gone too far. What is he supposed to do now? To chat casually? Good morning, mister, would you be so kind as to give me my pants back, I would like to return to the hotel?

“How are you feeling?” Raoul spoke first, staring at him with a grin.

“Fine, thank you,” automatically Q replied a polite answer of an Englishman. His response caused a short laugh, and suddenly Q began to feel disgustingly nauseous. He moved a little, wondering whether he was able to get up without letting Silva notice that something was wrong.

But Raoul, as if not wanting to embarrass him, got out of bed and put on a silk bathrobe – mustard with purple patterns.

“Bathroom is on the right, the kitchen is on the ground floor,” he dropped casually and exited the bedroom.

 

Q turned his head the other way and saw his clothes arranged neatly on a chair by the bed; on the bedside table lay his glasses.

Slowly and carefully he got up, cataloging pain in various parts of his body, walked into the bathroom. The tile under his bare feet felt like ice; he stepped into the huge yellowed with time bathtub on cast iron lion legs, shaking a little – whether from the cold or from the nerves. He turned on the water and just stood under the hot shower for about ten minutes, motionless. When he got out of the bathtub and dried himself with a towel, he looked in the mirror, blackened on the edges, glancing at the bruises on his skin, turning around and twisting his head to see the frighteningly clear teeth mark at the base of his heck. The feeling of nausea returned, and he quickly went back to the bedroom and got dressed, put on his glasses. Steep steps to the ground floor were a challenge, and he was genuinely glad that no one could see how slowly he was descending them.

The kitchen was relatively small: there was a smell of fresh coffee and scrambled eggs. Silva was sitting with a cup and a laptop at a narrow bar table.

Hearing him walk in, he turned his eyes from the screen to Q, smiled.

“Tea or coffee?”

He combed his hair back, and that made his face look somehow repellent, artificial, like a theatrical mask. Q stepped towards him, not smiling, ran his hand through the blond hair, dropping a strand on his forehead, as if trying to remove this impression.

“We need to talk to before I go, Tiago.”

The smile vanished from the man’s face, he looked seriously at Q, waiting.

“I don’t know if you keep thinking about revenge, but I'm begging you,” he looked him in the eye. “Forget about it. Regardless of whether you succeed or not, they will destroy you.”

Silva's lips curled into a pretend sneer, but then something flashed in his eyes, he leaned back in his chair, and his face smoothed out, as if for some reason he suddenly decided to stop his play.

“My grandmother was like a mother to me whom I didn’t remember,” he said, after a pause. “My grandmother died when I was twelve. I heard from someone that sometimes people’s hair turn silver with grief. And on the day of her funeral I stood in the hallway in front of our big mirror in a heavy cast iron frame. I stood there and looked for at least one tiny gray hair. I wanted to find it so badly, wanted the whole world to be see how I've changed, that I will never be the same again… That there is no turning back.”

“What do you want to prove this time?” Q pressed his lips into a thin line, shook his head. “The world won’t be watching, no one will except for me. You don’t want to hear it and understand it, but it is true.”

The ex-agent laughed, just as if he genuinely found it amusing.

“How fortunate! No one needs to watch this time, Q! This time, everything is just between me and _her_.”

The Quartermaster grabbed his face with his hands, breathed out angrily.

“There is no sense in risking your life to take vengeance on those who never carried for your existence!” Silva’s face rendered stone still, his eyes scary. But Q continued ardently. “What the fuck, Tiago! You already won simply because you are alive, so stop, get out of this game with a victory!”

He sucked in a shuddering breath, blinked nervously and added more quietly.

“I don’t want you to end up dead.”

Silva slowly circled Q’s thin wrists with his fingers and mildly removed the man’s hands from his face, his eyes burning with restrained anger.

“You'd better go, Q,” he said quietly in a flat voice.

“Or what?” Q didn’t feel the cold sticky fear anymore, as during their previous meeting.

He saw how Raoul’s jaw muscles clenched, nostrils flared, eyes burned through him. He leaned forward, but suddenly stopped, exhaled. A mocking smile appeared on his lips, the mask was back in place. He could hit Q, kick him out of the house or even kill; but it was much easier to just hide behind this impenetrable mask, go off-line, like a hacker plucking out the network cable.

“Well, you can stay, if you wish... relax, take a rest – you came here for a vacation after all – I’ve noticed you are limping, you probably really need that rest now, no?” he raised his eyebrows and smiled slyly.

And Q understood. He stepped back with a bitter look on his face and nodded.

“I would say ‘see you’, but this is our second meeting, which has no sense,” he wanted to add “Tiago” and couldn’t. He now realized he had stepped into a minefield, and he had to leave while he still could.

Silva’s expression suddenly changed again, something like regret flashed in his eyes; he looked away, turning to the window. Then he turned back, rubbed his forehead with his hand.

“Matthew...”

Q, who had already made a step towards the door, froze. He turned around slowly, as if dragged by an invisible thread, connected right to a nerve paralyzing his will. So fucking painful.

“What?” he muttered under his breath, ready for almost anything.

Tiago was staring at him through the eye sockets of this alien creature, like an enchanted dragon from a forgotten fairytale. Only breaking the spell with a kiss evidently didn’t work out.

Silva swallowed hard, looked down – and the moment was gone; words left unsaid. But he looked openly at Q, saying in a serious tone.

“See you later.”

 

Q hardly remembered how he got into the street, returned to the hotel – one single thought pulsed in his brain: get away, run away. He threw his things into a backpack, checked out of the hotel and fled to the station, taking the next train to Paris, then the train to London. And only seven hours later, when he was standing on the platform looking around insecurely, he realized that he had nowhere left to run anymore.

You must sit down on a bench, just sit down and breathe, he though, as you were trained. Concentrate on releasing tension and calming your heartbeat.

Exhale, inhale. Exhale, inhale.


	4. Ladrillo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A flashback.

The morning of March 2, 1997 was exactly the same as in all previous years for Matthew: gray and annoyingly depressive. It was his mother's birthday, and every year he secretly hoped that he would finally be unconcerned enough to even forget about it, but time after time this day passed in a dull stupefying dismal. His mother was now living with yet another wooer somewhere in Manchester; she had Matt’s grandparents take care of him almost right after his birth, herself having more urgent calling of arranging her own life. Matthew’s grandmother used to ask him to at least call and congratulate, but even she could see the point of that no longer. All the more strange was the fact that this still bothered him, making his usual not-at-all-too-sunny mood even worse. His awkward age began with a natural phase of searching for the meaning of life and realizing his own mortality that often paralyzed any desire to do anything at all in his life. On days like this, Matthew, unwanted even by his own parents, felt his own uselessness especially clear.

And the more excited he was about the fact that today after school he was taking the train to Leeds, where Rodriguez would be waiting at 15:35 at Park Square.

After enduring the last lesson, he got out of the classroom first and ran down the stairs. He popped outside and shivered because of the cold damp wind blowing from the hills, as always at this time of year: early spring in Sheffield was not so much different from the winter. Matt shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his faded black jacket and walked to the tram stop, hoping he wouldn’t have to wait for the tram for too long.

On the train he was traveling along side with a noisy family – a balding man with glasses holding a small girl in his lap and singing a song to her, constantly confusing the words, which made his daughter laugh each time; and a slender red-haired woman with a 9 year old boy, rehearsing a poem. They seemed so happy together, and that made Matt frown even more. He gloomily turned away to the window, looking at the gray landscapes whizzing by and plugged his ears with the headphones to avoid hearing anything but clanking sound of synthesizers and digitally distorted voice.

 

Exactly at half-past three he was already at the appointed place at Park Square. He stared at the peculiar minarets of St. Pauls House, looking around from time to time.

The park was completely empty. Clerks, which usually came here from the nearest offices for the lunch break, had already returned back to work; and no one else would come here in such cold weather. It took only two minutes for the familiar figure to emerge from the archway of one of the Georgian houses that surrounded the square, but Matthew was already freezing. The agent walked fast as usual, confidently looking around, as if not noticing his unofficial assistant, but Matt already knew from experience that Rodriguez would have noticed him immediately even in a crowd. Just a few meters away, he finally met eyes with Matt and smiled.

Rodriguez wore a thin sheepskin jacket, left unbuttoned and revealing a dark suit underneath, overall looking surprisingly restrained for his tastes, almost impeccable, if not for striped fingerless gloves and the gold earring. And Matt still didn’t believe that intelligence agents were able to have such an open and downright happy smile.

“Hey,” he stepped up to Tiago, hands in his pockets.

“Hello, what’s up?” Rodriguez greeted him cheerfully, slapping him on the shoulder.

Matthew just smiled slightly and took out the flash drive, giving it to the agent. Their last meeting was very brief, Tiago mentioned that he would leave soon: by Matt's estimation he already should have been gone. And this or their next meeting, probably, will be the last one. Most likely, it won’t put an end to their collaboration, but Matthew’s face still significantly saddened as soon as he gave away the drive and put his hand back in his pocket.

Tiago gave him a close look.

“Come on, I’ll walk you to the station,” he waved his hand invitingly, starting to walk away. “Tell me, what you added to the program this time.”

Matt immediately followed him, adjusting the strap of his backpack.

While he was talking about his work with the usual enthusiasm, Rodriguez glanced at him sharply every now and then. When Matt finished and looked at Tiago questioningly, the agent tsked and stopped.

“What is it?” Matt frowned, losing a good half of his confidence. “Not complex enough?”

Matthew's face seemed particularly pale with red brick facade in the background; he cowered a little, thrusting his hands deeper into his pockets.

“You are cold. Take off your backpack,” said Tiago in an assertive tone and took off his jacket.

“I’m all right,” muttered Matt, who didn’t expect such a caring gesture. But Rodriguez only opened the jacket in his hands, and Matt had no choice but to allow putting it on. Tiago was significantly wider in the shoulders, so the jacket was loose on the teen even over his own, but it embraced him immediately with pleasant warmth. Matt turned his head to Tiago and smiled shyly with his long mouth, picking his backpack up from the pavement.

“Thanks,” his eyes that most often were uncertain or cautious softened somehow, gaze becoming open and warm.

Rodriguez grinned and walked on, not looking at him anymore. Matthew usually didn’t feel uncomfortable being silent, but today for some reason the silence seemed to be too intense, and he began talking about programs again, but the former enthusiasm in his voice was gone. The agent occasionally nodded in reply or hummed in agreement – but he seemed to think about something else. Matt paused in confusion, and after a few steps Rodriguez finally looked at him.

“Why the long face today? I have the whole evening free, may be we should go to the movies?”

“Are you kidding or what?” Matt chuckled in surprise, looking down at his feet.

Tiago grinned cheerfully.

“No, I’m serious. I passed a cinema today – a block away from here – and I thought that it’s been ages since I last went to the movies.”

“Well... I suppose we can…” muttered Matt with an amused gleam in his eyes.

 

The cinema was old, with a classic corner entrance at the streets intersection – old enough to acquire some enigmatic appeal to its slight dilapidation. There were almost no people in the tiny lobby.

“Oh, look, they are still showing ‘Pulp Fiction’,” Rodriguez excitedly pointed at the timetable.

“Let's watch it then?”

When this movie came out two years ago, Matt couldn’t watch it because of the age limit restriction. Not that it would really stop him – he probably just didn’t have the company to watch it with.

The film wasn’t new, so the hall was almost empty. Traditional red velvet chairs were worn and creaky and reminded more of a theater than a cinema. The hall was cool, so Matthew never took off Tiago’s jacket. He sat down, leaning back, sinking into soft collar and inhaling the subtle smell of tobacco, leather and something else, spicy and pleasant.

The quality of sound was low, at times hardly audible, and Matt listened tensely to the dialogue on the screen. But during the unusually long opening titles, he suddenly realized that he wasn’t tense because of the need to listen closely. He felt some unknown strain, almost tangible presence of another person near, though he was looking straight at the screen and didn’t see Rodriguez even with the corner of his eye. Was it for the darkness, or that silence in between... But it was strange, because they didn’t sit close to each other for the first time – earlier, when they were discussing work, both sitting behind one screen, he never felt anything like this. Tiago moved his arm a little on the narrow armrest. He didn’t seem to notice that his elbow was now leaning against Matt’s shoulder; but Matthew suddenly felt this little touch burning through all the layers of clothing. He looked at Rodriguez sneakily.

"Okay now, tell me about the hash bars?" the titles were finally over; and Tiago smiled broadly, apparently remembering the starting dialogue. His smile was contagious, and corners of Matt’s mouth inadvertently went up. He stared at the screen, his legs stretched out as far as the distance between the seats allowed. When he rewatched the movie on tape two or three years later, he discovered that he didn’t remember half of the dialogues and the plot. Just how Rodriguez laughed softly, from the heart, as if he saw this movie for the first time; and how he himself snorted with laughter too, his fingers slipping shyly deeper into the sleeves of Tiago’s jacket. And how he suddenly got this funny idea.

“Hey,” he nudged Rodriguez with his elbow and nodded at the screen, just when a close-up of Vincent Vega’s face appeared there, “he sort of looks like you.”

“You think I look like a stoned American thug?” Tiago’s face expressed surprise and pretend insult, but his eyes sparkled merrily.

“Well, there's something about him... he’s kind of so laid-back, walking around with a gun and in a suit, an earring in his right ear…” there really wasn’t much alike in their appearance, but they both had an air of confidence around them, something that Matt could not explain. He himself was smiling because of this rather absurd comparison, but he still stuck to it just to hear the agent’s reaction. “Although he doesn’t wear ridiculous shirts...”

“I have ridiculous shirts?!”

“Muchas gracias,” Vincent said on the screen, and Tiago couldn’t keep his angry face anymore, snorting with muffled laughter.

“See, what did I say,” Matt persisted provocatively. “And your shirts – they are not just ridiculous, they are bloody terrible. Or is it your corporate clothing perhaps?” he understood that he was playing with fire here, but couldn’t stop himself due to some childish excitement.

“Yes, standard issue for the My-assistant-is-an-idiot-with-no-fashion-sense Department,” he replied, not least bit angry; and by letting Matthew get away with this impudence, he made him feel like a real partner, somehow equal. Matt even felt like he could kick him in reply, but he kept himself in the bounds of decency, trying to focus back on the movie.

The silence didn’t last long though.

 “You, I suppose, dance like him as well?” he turned to Rodriguez sweeping two fingers in a ‘V’ shape across his eyes.

Tiago exhaled noisily, pursing his lips in annoyance.

“Do _you_ know how to dance at all?” he asked in reply.

“No,” Matthew smiled, “but I'm not supposed to, I’m British. Maybe you can teach me?”

“Of course, the sole purpose of me coming to England was to teach you everything,” Rodriguez mocked him too, “otherwise you won’t be able even to dance with a girl on a date.”

“Are you going to teach me what to do on dates then?” Matt chuckled. “Just so you know, it’s a bit too late for the ‘birds and the bees’ talk.”

“Well, at least one thing I won’t have to teach you, thank God,” Tiago put his hand to his chest in a mock relief, and then looked back at the screen.

Vincent and Mia, wearing Vincent’s tan coat, were entering her home after the night out.

And here comes the shagging, Matt thought pulling an indifferent face just in case. His ears began to burn treacherously, though it was ridiculous for a 17 year old boy to be embarrassed with the prospect of sex on screen. But for some reason Matt was terribly uncomfortable with the thought that he would have to watch this kind of scene with Tiago.

However, the plot wasn’t that predictable, and soon they were both laughing at the trademark black humor. Sometimes Matt was not quite sure what was so funny, but Tiago’s muffled laughter was too contagious over and over again.

Around the middle of the episode ‘The Gold Watch’ Tiago slightly leaned towards Matt.

“What do you say we get out of here now and go eat something? I realized how hungry I am when they were eating burgers, and it’s a damn long movie...”

Matt would probably prefer to watch it till the end but frankly he was hungry too; and then, he didn’t really care what to do as long as it was in Tiago’s company.

 

Already in the street, squinting from the light, which seemed suddenly bright after the soft darkness of the cinema, Matthew asked, “So how did the movie end?”

“Butch – the boxer – shoots Vincent when he comes to finish him off, and Jules, his partner, decides to take the path of the righteous and ceases to be a criminal.”

“Right...” Matt mumbled vaguely. “Are we going to Burger King or what?”

“Yes, that’ll do. The movie might have a 25th frame effect or something, cause I really want those burgers,” said Tiago cheerfully.

Today, he generally wasn’t himself: too happy and carefree. Something really nice must had happened in his life. Or something awful.

Rodriguez wasn’t exaggerating his appetite – he took three burgers besides French fries and some other stuff. And he paid for his assistant, as he always did when it came to food; despite Matthew’s persistent attempts to protest.

They sat at a table by the wall, and Matt, nibbling on his burger, watched with amusement how Tiago devoured his food.

“Isn’t that a bit too much?” he asked, grinning.

“That’s what my little brother always said – so I grew up normal, and he was skinny like you,” the agent replied with stuffed mouth.

“You have a brother? And does he know that you're a super spy?”

“So a spy after all? Or a thug? You should decide already whom you work for.”

“If only I knew… I don’t even know whether I’ll see you again,” that was supposed to sound just as a fact, but his voice was a bit sad.

Rodriguez only shrugged, his face becoming serious.

“No one knows.”

“Well that’s a fresh thought,” Matt stole a French fry out of Tiago’s pile. “So what's about your brother? Does he work for MI6?”

“No,” the agent’s face didn’t change, “he was shot in a street fight when he was 19.”

“Oh,” that was unexpected. Matthew stared at the table, not knowing what to say, then raised his eyes to Tiago, and looked down again. “I'm sorry...”

Rodriguez shrugged his shoulders a little.

“Belize is not the safest place for a teenager. Still, everyone has their own head on the shoulders. I couldn’t look after him when I began working for MI6. He got involved with a drug cartel and all that shit so...”

Is Belize in South America? thought Matt. Or Africa? Shit, it's better not to ask.

“Yeah,” he sighed, “in our town you can end up in the wrong company too.”

He paused awkwardly and said again, “I'm sorry.”

“Never mind…” Rodriguez smiled, but his smile was sad. He glanced at his watch, finishing the last burger. “It's almost six. You should get back home.”

Matt nodded, crumpling the paper napkin in his hand.

“Thanks for the movie,” he dropped casually. “I didn’t go out for a while, so it was nice... You’ll send a message about the next time then?”

“I will. But it won’t be very soon,” Tiago involuntarily frowned, “maybe in a few months. I have a couple of problems to solve...”

He was going to add something, but stopped himself, rubbed his hands with a napkin vigorously and rose from the table.

Something awful then.

 

They walked to the train station in silence, and Matt thought desperately of something to say not to look like a fool. But when he opened his mouth and asked the question while they waited for the green light at the intersection, he immediately thought it would have been better to stay silent.

“What was your brother’s name?” he blurted out.

Tiago looked at him, wondering why he asked that, but answered eagerly, “Teodor. I guess, our family had this tradition – to name all the children in one generation starting with the same letter.”

“Hmm, Teodor,” Matt put his hands in the jacket – Tiago’s jacket – pockets. “That’s some kingly name. Did you call him that – Teodor?”

Tiago grinned.

“Well, you haven’t heard _my_ middle name. I called him Teo. By the way, you would have the same short name in Spanish – Teo.”

“Really? That’s funny,” Matthew looked at him, smiling with one edge of his mouth.

After a pause, he spoke again, himself wondering why all of a sudden this topic concerned him so much.

“I would have liked to have a brother. Too bad, my mother only bothered to have just one.”

“She didn’t manage to handle that one very well, did she?” Tiago quipped.

“No need in stating the obvious, you know,” Matt snapped, suddenly angry, and looked away.

Rodriguez took a quick look at Matthew and exhaled noisily.

“It’s not you fault,” he said at last in a sort of reluctant apology.

“Maybe it is, how would you know. I always do everything wrong,” Matt hunched his shoulders. “Forget it.”

It was one of those conversations that he later replayed in his head and winced mentally at his own inability to know what to say and when to shut up. This awkwardness seemed to even increase when he talked to Rodriguez.

Tiago took a deep breath, perhaps irritated, or just searching for words. Then he looked at the boy again, smiling a little.

“Are you fishing for praise, no? Do you know that there are just a few people with your abilities in this entire country?”

“No, I don’t,” Matt muttered and frowned, trying not to let his lips break into a silly smile. “Is it really so? Well, then you're lucky you got me, admit it.”

Rodriguez laughed shortly.

“Just don’t get too proud. But you shouldn’t underestimate yourself, too. Those, who don’t value themselves, fall in with bad guys too easily.”

“I don't fall in with anyone. You're the exception.”

Tiago didn’t seem to notice the sarcasm in his reply, and said seriously, “Let it remain so.”

 

They stopped at the entrance to the station. Matt took off Tiago’s jacket and handed it to the agent. “Thank you. I'll wait for the signal then.”

“All in good time,” Rodriguez patted him on the shoulder, slightly delaying his hand there a bit longer. “And get dressed warmer.”

“All right…” Matthew smiled back, wrinkling his nose a little. “Good luck.”

He turned around and walked to the trains, with a strange warm feeling inside. _The_ bad day turned out to be really good. Matt would start worrying later, but while he was sitting on the train at the window, he caught himself on the fact that God knows why he is happy; as if the feeling that he is all alone in this world had left him.


	5. Rojo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Skyfall timeline begins in the middle of the chapter.

_“No, chasing criminals, jumping on rooftops, shooting – all that is mostly fantasies of filmmakers and detective fiction writers. Our employees don’t really engage in all that. We have, of course, several agents that get to do something like that, but no one expects that from you, of course not. We work with information. Acquire and gather intelligence, calm and steady... This kind of work requires patience first of all. Patience and ability to wait for a long time.”_

 

Q smiled humorlessly, involuntarily remembering his job interview for MI6. He didn’t believe it then that working in the Secret Intelligence Service really can be so boring. Of course, to complain about the peace and calm in his line of work, where public safety is at stake, was just an outrage; but Q started to go insane with boredom. There wasn’t anything challenging for a couple of months now. He was double checking existing programs, improving small details, and writing some things on his own; but there were no new problems requiring urgent solution, nothing stimulating or thought-provoking. And then there was Christmas. Q hated all this pre-holiday bustle: he knew that he was unoriginal in his hatred, but it wasn’t out of desire to be different. Holidays just irritated him. So he vaguely imagined what Miss Moneypenny meant when she gave him a bottle of wine wrapped in gift paper with computers and CD-ROMs on it (where did she only find this cute kitsch!) and told him to celebrate thoroughly. But he guessed that she probably didn’t mean for him to sit in a dark room, illuminated only by the laptop’s screen, drinking alone. He smiled sadly to that thought, his finger sliding on the touchpad of the laptop lazily.

He opened his mail not for the first time this evening, never reading the congratulatory letters though. He opened the address book, scrolled down the list of addresses thoughtfully, checking whether he had forgotten to send congratulations to someone ‘important’.

His attention was drawn to a name in the very end of the address list. He frowned slightly, trying to remember who it was – there were no random addresses in his mail. He clicked on it, opening the ‘New message’ box, but no history of correspondence appeared beneath it. He was going to delete the address when he felt a sudden heat rush. This was Silva’s address, the one he used just one time in 2010, setting up a meeting at the Chinese restaurant. Suddenly, just like in a horror B-movie, the phone rang loudly, and Q jumped, startled, accidentally hitting the ‘Send’ button. Sending a blank email to Silva.

“Shit!” he swore out loud, immediately sobering up, felt his cheeks burn – how could he make such a slip!

He nervously rubbed his face with his hand, telling himself, that Silva hardly remembers about this account anyway, and hurried to get out of bed and pick up the phone. An unfamiliar voice spoke in the receiver – someone got the wrong number – but Q didn’t manage to answer. He stood still, letting the phone slip out of his hand: the laptop made a digital sound alerting him about a new instant message. He returned to the laptop and looked at the screen, swallowing nervously.

 _‘missed me?’_ asked the user johnleehooker55, and only if the famous bluesman didn’t rise from the dead, Silva hasn’t forgotten about this email account.

Q drummed with his fingers on the laptop next to the touchpad. Should he answer? Or simply close the window and pretend that nothing happened?

‘Merry Christmas :-)’ he finally typed.

After all, it could be interpreted as a hint, sort of ‘Big Brother is watching you’. His index finger hit Enter, the line appeared in the chat box. Q bit his lip.

 _‘Feliz Navidad, Q’_ came unemotional reply.

Q crooked his mouth. It always annoyed him – this particular manner to add words and phrases from Spanish into English. Or did he like it? With Tiago he could never figure out where the line between aesthetic rejection of his manners and behavior (so unlike all that in his town and country was considered acceptable) and some childish admiration was drawn. With Silva he couldn’t understand where anger and nervous caution ended, and a binding, torturous feeling began, lacing his throat with need and causing his heart to skip beat.

‘Spending the holidays working?’ he sent the message and smiled sadly, shaking his head. What a casual friendly correspondence.

_‘It's better than drinking alone.’_

Q froze for a moment, but then exhaled shakily: he certainly can’t see you here, you drunk paranoid.

‘Surely your choice is much wider than that.’

_‘Spending the holidays with you is an option I’d choose, too bad it’s not on the list.’_

Q let out an unamused laugh.

‘My CPU might overload with sarcasm.’

_‘That's why I don’t like messages. You can never tell emotions behind the words.’_

‘Emoticons might help.’

A bitter taste appeared in Q’s mouth, as if he had just drunk not rather expensive burgundy, but some shit from a can. He was nervous and irritated already, and losing control was always a bad sign. Damn, why did he manage to send this accidental message at the very moment when he was a bit depressed, drunk and emotionally vulnerable?

_‘How are things at work? :-)’_

Q snorted.

‘Better than you’d hope for.’

...On the other hand, if this conversation really annoyed him, he would have closed the window. But he continued to respond.

_‘Oh, why these accusations, Q?_

_and I really miss you :-( ’_

It was starting to resemble a conversation with a friend – or an excellent mockery.

‘No doubt. I am hard to forget.’

_‘Unfortunately yes.’_

‘Were you always this good at lying or was it your training?’ Q didn’t even notice that he was smiling.

_‘Have I ever lied to you? oh yes, I had already asked that. What was the answer? :-)’_

‘Negative. But I suspect you didn’t have the time to miss me.’

_‘I will always find time for you._

_but now I must go_

_will you write again? :-)’_

Q’s fingernail picked at the edge of the ‘N’ key; but then his finger slid up.

‘Yes.’

Enter.

 

He would spent the rest of the evening finishing the bottle of wine and telling himself that he couldn’t get into a trap by just chatting with Silva.

 

† † † † †

 

Q yawned third time in a row, rubbed his eyes under the glasses. Today he slept just 3 hours in a chair in the meeting room. Probably, in most offices periods of calm are followed by a sudden logjam – that is the unbalanced nature of the universe – but this was something out of ordinary. Ever since the hard drive with the list of MI6 agents was stolen, none of the employees of the Secret Intelligence Service could afford to relax even for a minute.

“Good morning, Q. You look remarkably fresh today.”

“Good morning, Johnson. I would’ve joked too, if I spent the night in bed at least,” Q poured hot water into his cup and walked out of the office kitchen to his desk.

His phone peeped in the trouser pocket, signaling the arrival of an incoming email message. Johnleehooker55. Q was already used to receive messages from Silva from time to time – usually about nothing in particular, just chit-chat. But this message made him stop abruptly, spilling hot tea on the floor.

_‘So much problems with this list, no?’_

Q had to suspect that Silva knew about the list, why didn’t he! Perhaps, not only knew: he most likely was involved in the heist...

‘so is with you too’ Q ignored capital letters and punctuation only in cases of extreme nervousness.

_‘For a stupid fish the bait is the enemy, not the fisherman, Q’_

He hated them, these proverbs. What does he mean? Who’s the fisherman? Is it a hint that he didn’t steal the list? Or is it about M again? There was an obnoxious feeling in his stomach, much like the one he had at the thought of an inevitable air travel.

‘your job?’ he sent the message and tensed, waiting. A second. Two. Three. Four.

_‘oh, gotta go. Have a nice day, Q’_

So how should he interpret such an answer? As a ‘yes’? And if so, what is Silva’s plan? To lure M out? He might threaten to sell the information to terrorist organizations, for example... Q’s fingers, holding the phone, were ice cold.

‘I suppose I must report you?’

He was still standing a few steps away from his desk, waiting for an answer, when Johnson called him out, “Alert signal! Someone’s trying to decrypt the stolen hard drive!”

Q rushed to the monitors, flinging the phone onto the table. What did Silva want? to distract him? His thoughts circled in a sickening swirl, and his nerves were strung up; but if Silva thought that it would prevent him from doing his work properly, he must be very naive.

“Is Tanner on the line? Tracking the encryption signal now…”

“Tanner and M are in Millbank, will be here in ten minutes.”

“Yes, I see them now, Johnson. Broadcast the localization to Tanner... It's somewhere in UK... London. The signal’s coming from MI6!” If Q had any remaining doubts whether Silva has the drive, now everything was transparently clear. Only he was able to breach the most secure computer system in Britain, get behind their firewall, disable the monitoring of security…

“What?”

“The data packet is linking to our network,” Q adjusted the earpiece in his ear, taking a call from Tanner.

“Shutting down now?”

“No, M needs to know where exactly the signal’s coming from... Getting trace back now,”  Q’s fingers typed at the keys with superhuman speed, he double-checked the signal, there was no error.

“It’s coming from M’s computer!” Q slowly lifted his head to look at Johnson and blinked nervously. “Shutting down.”

Q’s phone peeped again, causing him to flinch. He quickly grabbed it off the table, feeling Johnson’s glance on him.

_‘You have a minute to take the letter from your locker’_

Later, he could not answer why he did as Silva wanted him to, and not vice versa, as the logic of the situation demanded. But, nevertheless, Q shoved his phone in his pocket and rushed out of the room (‘Where are you going?’ Johnson’s voice behind him) to the hallway, turned right, then left, ran to section J, where the employee lockers were located. He flew into the room filled with bright artificial light, darted to his locker, typed the code. The steel door opened; Q saw a white envelope with no markings inside. He tore it open, tearing the sheet inside the envelope in a hurry, pulled it out – one single word was printed in the middle of the sheet.

 

‘BOOM’

 

In the next moment Q heard a deafening explosion.

The shock wave hit him, almost causing to fall to the floor; he clutched at the edge of the open locker, feeling the whole building quake. There was a monstrous crushing noise, a cloud of concrete dust flew into the doorway; and Q ran to the opposite door, breathless with panic, afraid to look back, as in a nightmare. He ran and ran, hearing nothing, understanding only the need to escape at any cost, feeling a burning smell in his nostrils; and that smell drove him like a frightened animal, blinded by fear.

Like a rat.

He thought of this comparison later, when the fire was extinguished, the bodies (Johnson was among them) recovered from the rubble, and an even row of coffins covered with flags was lined up inside the new premises of MI6. Six of his co-workers were dead, many more were in hospitals with injuries and severe burns; but he was unharmed. And why?

Because of its connection to the terrorist responsible for all that. He survived because Silva sent him a message, leading him away from the epicenter of the explosion, which wouldn’t have happened if Q reported to M about the plans of her former agent. Now he witnessed the result of his silence, his sneaky little thoughts: he's my friend, he was hurt, he's just... what? just going to kill your boss? What a little thing indeed. Did you really hope that Silva plans to do just that?

Idiot.

Traitor.

Yes, Silva was responsible for the explosion, but none of this would have happened if MI6 didn’t have a rat.

 

Q rose from his desk in the new headquarters, which felt more like a bomb shelter during the war. Thick walls, smell of mold and damp coldness, which even improved ventilation system couldn’t eliminate. Q shrugged his shoulders from the cold, his cardigan failing to warm him like it used to. He should go wash his hands with hot water, that should help. He went to the bathroom, turned the water on and pressed on the soap dispenser, more out of habit than out of need. Red liquid flowed onto his hand, shockingly bright against his pale skin. Q flinched, instantly putting his hand under the water, and howled, pulling it away – the water was boiling hot.

“Shit, shit…”

What moron thought of using this color for soap? He tore off a paper towel, wiped his hands and walked out, slamming the door behind him.

He must tell M everything. It won’t correct what happened, but it can help prevent the things Silva plans next. Silva. There is no Tiago anymore, when will you finally grasp that?

 _But he saved me._ Shut up. Maybe he gave you a chance to escape, because he plans to use you in some way and expects you to continue being silent. Are you so stupid as to believe that he cares about you because he fucked you a year ago? Do you really think your skinny arse is worth so bloody much?

Get it together and do and at least one decent thing in your miserable life, Matthew.

 

The glass door of M’s office opened noiselessly. Q went inside with determination.

“Q! How nice of you to come, I was just going to send for you. Take a seat,” M pointed to a chair in front of her desk.

The Quartermaster sat down, keeping his back straight, hands folded in his lap.

“How can I be of service, ma'am?”

The question was, basically, useless. M learned everything on her own. He was too late.

“One of our agents requires a new assistant.”

“Oh,” Q blinked in surprise. The relief was so strong that it shook his resolve. He wanted to delay the moment of truth. “And who will it be?”

“007. He flies to Shanghai in two days. We believe that’s where the trace of the terrorist who attacked MI6 leads. Provide 007 with necessary documents and equipment, Tanner will put you two together.”

They found Silva’s trail already, whispered a soothing voice in his head, they can handle it. You shouldn’t really tell M yet. What’s to tell anyway? You will be removed from the case, interrogated. And now you have a chance to work against Silva, to be more of use than in a prison cell.

“Yes, ma'am,” Q nodded. “Anything else?”

“If the trail is right, you will be asked to follow 007. I heard you avoid air travel – will it be a problem?”

Q licked the inside of his lips.

“No, ma'am. I'm ready.”

“Good,” M nodded, signaling that the conversation was over and looked down at the screen of her laptop. But when Q stood up to walk out of the room, she added. “Oh, one more thing, Q. I guess I should warn you. 007 has a… particular attitude. Don’t be surprised. And let me know if you feel that 007 gets a bit too creative – you’ll understand what I mean.”

Q allowed himself a brief half-smile.

“Got it, ma'am. I'll keep you posted.”

And only when he walked out into the corridor, he smirked humorlessly, thinking that he might be some sort of magnet for the ‘creative’ types recently.

 

† † † † †

 

Bond was waiting for him in the Room 34 of the National British Gallery, sitting on a bench in front of a picture of Turner. Frankly, he wasn’t a great admirer of arts; but here Tanner arranged him a meeting with the new Quartermaster. 007 was wearing a dark, perfectly ironed suit – no folds or wrinkles. There were a lot of lines and wrinkles on his face though; he looked tired, as if he hadn’t slept for a week. Silvery stubble on his chin, blond hair trimmed short: a haircut of a security guard or a criminal type from the North.

Q sat down beside him. The agent looked at him, a little tense, then turned away never changing his strained posture. The Quartermaster had to begin the conversation. The easiest way was get down to business right away, but Q felt a strange confidence this morning, as if he had an advantage over everyone. And enough boldness to say a couple of barbed remarks to a mature, experienced field agent, who, by the way, began his career in the Navy. Q wondered whether Tanner determined the place of their meeting right before this picture deliberately. "The Fighting Temeraire tugged to her last berth to be broken up". Bond is 43, and as far as Q knew the statistics for double-O agents, he’s going to retire rather soon; if he would live long enough for retirement, of course.

“This picture always makes me feel a little melancholy,” he said thoughtfully in a soft voice. “Grand old war ship, being ignominiously hauled away for scrap...”

He sighed.

“The inevitability of time, don't you think?” he continued, turning to the picture. “What do you see?”

“A bloody big ship.” not looking at him, answered Bond. “Excuse me.”

He's already got up to leave, and Q uttered.

“007.”

Bond stopped, as if someone invisible pulled him back and sat down again.

“I'm your new Quartermaster.”

Bond exhaled, slightly curled his lips into a menacing sneer.

“You must be joking.”

“Why, because I'm not wearing a lab coat?”

“Because you still have spots.”

“My complexion is hardly relevant.”

Q replied calmly and confidently, only blinked twice more often than usual. They exchanged these pleasantries like two well-trained tennis players exchange strokes.

 

“…Every now and then a trigger has to be pulled.”

Bond finally turned to look at him.

“Or not pulled. It's hard to know which in your pajamas.”

Q turned his head, returning the gaze. A tiny wrinkle of amusement in the corner of one eye appeared on Bond’s serious, even a little irritated face; and the mood of the conversation instantly changed, causing their last sentences to sound a bit like flirting even.

“Q,” Bond said almost friendly, holding out his hand.

“007,” the Quartermaster shook his hand and replied with a light, flirtatious smile, which surprised him a bit. Since when did he allow himself playful tone at work, and even more so with men?

Bond smiled openly; but Q’s tone instantly changed to serious when he started talking about the actual business: he handed the agent the documents and a small case with the equipment. Bond seemingly didn’t appreciate the received items solely to annoy the Quartermaster. Q wasn’t annoyed the least bit though. If he did have to follow the angent to Shanghai, Bond won’t be the most unpleasant company.

“Good luck out there in the field. And please, return the equipment in one piece.”


	6. Arenoso

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Silva's island and some porn again :3

The flight from London to Shanghai took overall twelve and a half hours, not including time spent at Pudong Airport waiting for the flight to Macau. Q had taken a dose of sedatives just before he left home and some mild sleeping pills once he was on the plane. He slept through most of the time during the flight to Shanghai, and at the airport he took a minimum dose of sedatives again, enough to dull the irrational panic, but not leaving him too sluggish and sleepy by the time he landed in Macau.

At the Macau airport Q washed his hands thoroughly and put on contact lenses. The world around became unusually sharp, making him dizzy for half a minute. Q prefered glasses, believing contact lenses to be uncomfortable, but glasses were no good for any drastic physical activity, and he couldn’t exclude the possibility that he would have to do some running at least.

Exiting the terminal, he took a taxi to the hotel, where he was supposed to meet Bond. 007 was arriving on the next flight from Shanghai, so Q had about two hours of free time – enough to let the headquarters know about his arrival, rest a little, take a shower and put on a tuxedo. He already knew that Bond was going to visit a casino tonight. In addition Q looked somewhat more mature and imposing in a suit, and making such impression seemed important when interacting with Bond.

Two hours and twenty minutes later Q adjusted the black silk bow tie with just a hint of emerald green and left the room.

“Room service,” he said softly after knocking at the door of room 721, again surprising himself with this, perhaps, inappropriately playful tone.

Bond, who was listening to the sounds behind the door with a gun in his hand, relaxed, recognizing Q’s voice instantly. Although he spoke to him only once, the specific timbre of Q’s voice and perfect pronunciation wasn't hard to memorize. Bond opened the door, catching the mood of the conversation eagerly.

“But I didn’t order anything.”

Q looked at the agent, who stood in front of him in just a towel around his hips, grinning smugly, and smirked in response.

“I’ve got some new information.”

“And here I thought you were an expert in computer technology and were able to deliver messages without flying half across the world,” Bond returned to the mirror above the sink: Q came when he was about to shave.

“Something tells me that you don’t check your email too often,” Q slowly walked behind him, stopped in the doorway of a carved wooden wall, separating the washroom and the room. “The first five names from the list are on youtube for everyone to see.”

“That was only a matter of time.”

“But that’s not all. They promised to post five more every week... it’s some kind of sick game...” Q frowned involuntarily, not for the first time thinking what exactly Silva’s plan might be.

Bond only exhaled in response, taking the razor, and Q distracted himself from these thoughts, returning a half-smile on his face.

“Straight razor. That is rather traditional of you.”

“Sometimes the old ways are the best.”

“But you shouldn’t miss the opportunity to try something new,” Q smiled slyly. If he was now asked what the hell he was talking about, he would have just shrugged. It seemed much easier though – to talk in this manner, the conversation turning into a game. A nice way to forget about stress for a short while; apparently, Bond felt the same way.

The agent looked at the Quartermaster through the dark mirror, leaving the first clean line in thick white foam on his cheek.

“M’s already briefed me on the list, raising the question of what are you really doing here?”

“In case you need help. Support,” Q looked at the agent’s reflection, then his eyes traveled lazily down his torso. Bond had broad shoulders and powerful biceps, his body trained perfectly, steel muscles moving under the tanned skin. A fighting machine, Q thought. May be a bit outdated, but still deadly. Tiago, when he was still 005, never made Q think in such terms. Perhaps, he was too young and stupid then to feel the dangerous power coming from Rodriguez. He felt it fully near Bond, but it did not scare him. It rather excited him.

“Support? I can expect only tech support from you. For example, in case I desperately need to read my mail – I always forget the password,” with feigned self-deprecation said Bond, getting rid of the foam swiftly and thoroughly. “Or maybe Mallory sent you to spy on me?”

“I don’t report to Mallory,” Q relaxed his arms that were crossed over his chest, took one small step forward, “I report to M. Just like you. If she decided to send me here, then it’s for a good cause. Perhaps, you need a messenger at hand. Or a person who can hack into anything, based on digital technology. Or to hand you a towel, at worst,” Q smiled, raising his eyebrows and stretching out his hand holding a towel to Bond, who finished shaving.

If only Q knew the answer to Bond’s question himself. He heard from Tanner a couple of transparent hints that Bond didn’t pass all the tests quite well. Why did M send him on this mission after all? Did she have no one better and more experienced? Or does she trust Bond the most? In any case, he wasn’t going to voice his questions and concerns to 007; because there was another option – Bond was sent for the slaughter.

Bond took the towel, smile noticeable only in wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, carefully wiped away the remaining foam, keeping his gaze on Q and not changing the distance between them that was already too close for co-workers. Then he dropped the towel to the floor and, slowly, as if even lazily, placed his hand on the back of Q’s neck, drawing him closer and confidently kissing on the lips.

Bond’s lips were a bit rough, but there was no pressure, just careful slide, slow and skillful. Q replied without hesitation or second thought. He gently licked into his mouth and embraced Bond with one hand, guiding his other hand down over the broad chest, prominent abs and lower, to the edge of the towel covering the agent’s hip.

Bond ran his fingers through short curls at the back of his neck – Q’s hair became a wild mess of curls because of the humid climate – his second hand slid across the waist, pulling the young man closer. As the kiss became slightly more aggressive, tongue licking in deeper, Bond’s hand moved lower, lightly squeezing Q’s ass through the thin fabric of his perfectly tailored trousers.

The Quartermaster noticed that the agent’s cock was already very interested in what was happening even through the towel, and he almost purred, pressing to Bond in a subtle grinding motion of his hips. Suddenly he pulled away in the next second – Bond, who wasn’t expecting it, didn’t have time even to try to stop him.

“I'm waiting for you downstairs in fifteen minutes,” Q said in a calm voice, as if nothing had happened, smiling with his slightly swollen lips. He went to the door then, smoothing his hair back.

Bond exhaled, not trying to hide disappointment, but then he smirked, something akin to excitement of a gambler flashing in his eyes.

Once out of the room, Q went to the elevator and pressed the button, musing on the fact that the way he just behaved was a little more than unusual for him. But it turned out to be just right; and for some reason he didn’t doubt that he chose the right way to interact with 007. Though a year ago he probably wouldn’t even dare to think about something like that: teasing an experienced and dangerous agent – where did the confidence that he is capable of it, that it's going to work, came from? The answer was simple. Whether Silva was lying to him or not, but it’s rather hard to pretend during sex; and certain confidence was instilled within his subconscious mind, a concept that he could be desirable and attractive for men – something Q never suspected.

But now he could feel it. It stood out from the beginning in how he started the conversation with Bond on the day they met. And Bond felt it too: he wouldn’t pay any attention to the former Q; but this Q made Bond want him.

 

The agent joined his assistant downstairs in 14 minutes, dressed in an elegant midnight blue tuxedo. Judging by the glimpses of expression on his face, there were no hard feelings on his part.

“You shouldn’t neglect shaving, it makes you look good,” Q remarked, standing up to greet him. “As far as I know, the atmosphere of a casino is familiar to you, isn’t it?”

 

† † † † †

 

Q knocked the gun out of the hands of a Chinese guard, who was aiming at 007, at the last moment. The second blow neutralized the guard, adding the final touch to Bond’s most spectacular fight of the week. Q didn’t fight for quite some time, and it felt good to know that his body still remembered the right skills from his training. Bond was already getting out of the lizards enclosure onto the wooden walkway, and Q was a little flattered with pleasant surprise that flashed on the agent’s face.

“Where is your issued weapon, 007?” Q raised his dark eyebrows, holding out his hand to help Bond. His eyes were gleaming with amusement.

“I'm afraid a Komodo dragon ate it,” Bond grinned.

“If I had not seen it with my own eyes, I would advise you to come up with a better excuse next time.”

Bond only chuckled and nodded to Q, already heading for the exit. The Quartermaster followed him with his eyes, becoming serious. He knew who Bond went looking for. But no one could tell, what will happen when they meet.

 

Q almost got to the hotel, when he was suddenly attacked from behind, a strong grip immobilizing him and a hand clasped over his mouth. He twitched, trying to break free, but then he felt a painful sting on his neck and in the next few seconds all faded into soft heavy darkness.

 

Consciousness returned to him slowly in uneven jerks. Casino, Bond... Macau. He's in Macau. Komodo dragons... Bond, taxi... kidnapping. Shit. His heart began pounding faster instantly. Head was buzzing, throat was painfully dry – apparently, from the tranquilizer. He couldn’t tell how much time has passed, maybe a couple of hours, maybe much more. Without opening his eyes, he subtly shifted, trying to understand his position. Horizontal, on his side, his hands tied behind his back. He twitched them – not a rope, handcuffs. He carefully opened his eyes.

He was lying on a bed, more resembling a hospital cot, covered with coarse gray cloth. There were bare concrete walls surrounding him; a window that had once been in one of the walls was filled with cement blocks, letting no natural light into the room. And a few steps away from the bed none other than Silva sat staring at him. Of course.

Q swallowed, trying to wet his parched throat.

“It's useless,” he said in a hoarse voice.

Silva moved his eyebrows up questioningly.

“If you expect to catch someone using me as bait, you’ve made the wrong choice.”

Silva laughed and let out a relaxed breath, turning slightly back and forth in a shiny leather office chair, so unfitting to the empty and gray interior of this relatively small room with a disproportionately high ceiling.

“No, Q, you are not bait. She is with Bond now, and he soon will join us.”

“In that case, accept my sincere condolences,” Q wrinkled his nose despisingly. He sat up with some effort, pressing his back to the unpleasantly cold wall, looking at Silva. Expensive and eccentric clothes, the same unnatural bleached hair that created an ugly contrast with his bold, expressive features. Now, in this concrete cell, he particularly strongly resembled an actor of some absurd avant-garde play. A play in which Q didn’t want to participate anymore. Well he sure hoped Bond would spoil Silva’s performance substantially.

“And why is that?” Raoul raised his eyebrows, either really wondering, or just playing along.

“You'll see,” muttered Q. “So what am I doing here? Did you decide to thank me personally for the successful cooperation?”

“It is hard to call cooperation, when someone just gets in your way,” Silva squinted slyly. “On the other hand you seem to cooperate with Bond really well, who would have thought!”

“Oh, better than you can imagine,” Q smiled, jerking his chin up.

Silva grinned humorlessly.

“Yes, I see you're already running to the edge of the world for him, even forgetting about your aviophobia.”

“I was appointed as his assistant, I’m simply following orders,” Q’s green eyes fixed on the ex-agent’s. “I would have decided that it’s jealousy speaking, Mr. Silva, but I'm afraid we have a slightly different relationship. And my relevance for you is already exhausted.”

Silva laughed, throwing his head back again, foolishly spinning in his chair. Then he sighed, looking at Q with a genuinely happy smile, as if admiring.

“How I missed you.”

“Yes, I've noticed, judging by the relaxed atmosphere and by the fact that my hands are cuffed behind my back,” the Quartermaster answered coldly.

Raoul made an eloquent gesture, as if annoyed by his own forgetfulness. The chair creaked loudly as he stood up, the sound of steps a hollow echo on the concrete floor. The cot sagged under Silva’s weight when he sat down in the middle of it, half turning to Q.

“Let me, I'll take them off,” the ex-agent said quietly, getting the keys to the handcuffs from his pocket.

Q turned his back to him and swallowed involuntary, feeling the gentle touch of his fingers on skin. The lock clicked, his hands were free; he rubbed his wrists, not looking at Silva.

Q tried to look calm: he spoke without raising his voice, allowing himself of all emotions only a hint of sarcasm. But there was almost physically unbearable burning in his chest – the pain and frustration from his own stupidity. He made all the mistakes Silva expected him to make, and he had nothing to oppose him, he let himself open up too much, trying to get his Tiago back. His Tiago. “His” Tiago probably never existed, Q never really knew who this man was. And now it seemed that last strength was flowing out of him, leaving not enough energy for hatred and anger. He had never felt so tired.

“I think it would be better for me to die in that explosion,” he said suddenly, looking at his hands.

He was immediately thrown with force on the bed. He jumped on the hard mattress, turned around in surprise, quickly sitting up. Silva was on his feet throwing the handcuffs into a wall in rage.

“You don’t understand!” growling with wrath, he choked. “You don’t understand what you are doing to me!”

A rush of desperate anger gave Q the energy he was lacking a second ago, he rose from the cot and, although he was still a little dizzy, stepped to Silva.

“I can tell you what _you_ did to _me_ though. You made me a traitor and a murderer. And what am I doing to you? Rather interesting to hear!”

Silva grabbed the heavy chair and threw it in Q’s direction; it landed with a loud thud right next to him, falling apart into pieces.

“I warned you! I asked you not to mess with me!” Silva angrily jabbed his finger in the direction of Q, then nervously ran a hand through his colorless hair, turning away for a moment, taking a step to the side.

“And I didn’t!” barked Q. “So those corpses that you leave behind, are now on my conscience, too!”

Raoul crossed the distance between them in several large steps, roughly grabbing at Q’s clothes, growling into his face, “Have you not noticed that your work often deals with corpses? Your branch, by the way, invents guns, _guns_ , and not toys for children! And nobody forced you to work there! Why the hell are you even here? You spoil all my plans just by... just by appearing in my sight,” he added more quietly, breathing noisily, his face betraying that to tell Q this wasn’t in his plans either.

Q grabbed at his wrists, “All your plans carried out just fine so far,” he lifted his upper lip, sneering, “including me not telling M about you!”

Silva pushed him again, clenching the clothes in his fists in a new wave of anger.

“Yes? So what stopped you, Q?”

“You know what, don’t you?! You were counting on it, weren’t you, Silva?” Q shoved at his chest with force, pushing him away. “That I will continue as a fucking idiot to cling to the idea that you're still the same person I loved!”

Silva let him out of his grasp for a second, panting and staring angrily at Q who was blinking nervously, seemingly stunned by his own words. The next moment Silva gripped him again, with all the force slamming him into the wall – so that his breath stuck in his throat at the impact – kissing him roughly, biting his lower lip to draw blood.

Q, recovering from the momentary stupor, lunged, trying to break free from his grip, but Silva only pinned him stronger to the wall. The Quartermaster could sink his fingers into his neck, pressing on pressure points, or jab his knee into his groin – he wasn’t so helpless physically. The problem was that he had to force himself to resist. He tried to order himself not to give in, not to humiliate himself further, but the voice of reason was drowned by an overriding, irresistible craving. Their kiss had the coppery taste of blood. Q ran his fingers through Silva’s hair and pulled painfully, managing to bite his tongue.

Silva withdrew his face, showing his bloodied teeth in a sneer, dug his fingers into the other man’s chin, turning Q’s face slightly to the side. His second hand grabbed his wrist, squeezing hard enough to bruise, pressed him with his whole body, pushing a knee between his legs.

“Every time I hear your voice, smell the scent of your skin,” he spoke rapidly into his ear, breathless with emotions, “...your unconscious, bestial beauty, grace of a cat, delicate but not least feminine at the same time... your bright, boyish mouth and clever challenging eyes... you're driving me crazy!”

“I hate you,” Q gasped violently back, glancing at him with his half-crazed eyes gleaming feverishly. His free hand grabbed at Silva, digging fingers into his back, hoping to leave bruises. “I hate you.”

This was so much easier to say than the words of love.

Silva sucked a kiss into his neck, leaving a hot spot of blood rushing to the skin, released his chin. Q groaned through clenched teeth, unable not to cant his hips forward, grinding on Silva’s thigh between his legs. A hot wave of familiar torturous pleasure went through out his body, making him writhe for more friction, more pressure, more anything. If he did hate anyone at the moment that would be himself – for surrendering to this wild uncontrollable desire, for wanting Silva so much that nothing else mattered anymore. Though his mind still protested, his hands were already rushing feverishly to undo Silva clothes – quick, just to get rid of all that separated them, to feel his bare skin.

“...driving me crazy,” choked Silva repeatedly, pulling the Quartermaster’s tie in forceful jerks, getting the shirt off and tearing the buttons in a hurry. Fingers slid over Q’s body scratching his soft pale skin with short nails.

Q pulled Silva’s face closer, pressing his mouth to the ex-agent’s, involuntarily closing his eyes and kissing him, kissing until they both were out of breath. He slid his hands down to unzip Raoul’s pants, but only squeezed his hard cock through the fabric, looking at Silva’s eyes through dark lashes. Q’s widened pupils made his eyes black, and Silva closed his eyes for a moment, pressing into Q’s hand with a strangled groan, then grabbed his shoulders and turned him to face the wall. Gray, dead concrete was now all Q could see, and irrational claustrophobic panic squeezed his throat alongside with painful arousal, as if he was caught in a trap. Silva covered his chest with his broad palms, pressing Q’s back to him. Raoul rubbed his groin on Q’s ass, covering his neck with quick kisses, stroked with his fingertips and then squeezed roughly hardened nipple, causing Q’s breath hitch with a sob. The Quartermaster closed his eyes, undid his pants with disobedient fingers pulling them down from narrow hips together with the underwear, and rested his hands on the rough wall.

In absolute silence, interrupted only by their frequent gasps and deafening thud of Q’s own heart in his ears, the sound of zipper seemed indecently loud. One hand returned to Q’s chest, gradually slipping down to the narrow waist, outlining the V-shaped muscle and getting into dark curls. He grabbed his cock, smearing precome with his thumb, immediately starting rhythmic strokes. Q let out a ragged groan, leaned back, arching like a cat, trying to wriggle closer to his broad chest. Raoul stood like a second wall behind him, the hand moving on his cock: quick and persistent, no sign of teasing or caress, as if demanding, forcing out his orgasm. But it still seemed painfully not enough, he wanted more, wanted to touch Silva himself. He grabbed Raoul’s arm above the wrist tightly.

“Let go,” he said in a hoarse whisper, biting his lip with a groan. “Let me turn around... I want to see you.”

“Shh, not now,” said Raoul into his neck, and Q felt his slick with saliva cock slide between his thighs. “Close your legs.”

He didn’t object, moving his legs together tightly, so that his knees touched. Silva pushed further into the narrow space between his thighs, and Q muttered with a wry smile in between gasps, “What’s with the ‘minimum program’? Are you suddenly afraid to hurt me?”

Silva let out a short silent chuckle that got lost in his heavy panting and sped up his strokes on Q’s cock, causing his grin to turn into an excited hiss.

“And you need all at once?”

Silva's hips were moving quickly and relentlessly, cock smearing precome on the hot skin of Q’s thighs, trembling with muscle strain.

“I want to snatch at least something,” the Quartermaster twisted his neck and looked at the ex-agent over the shoulder. With disheveled hair and burning eyes Silva’s face didn’t seem to be a sinister mask anymore, he was the man Q wanted to see.

Raoul cupped Q’s cheek with his free hand, turning his face to him a little more, pressed his mouth to his lips, kissing him deeply but more gently than before, and Q returned the kiss, his long eyelashes fluttering shut, completely lost in the touch of Silva’s large hands, in the heat of his body. He didn’t know where he was now, and what will happen next, but it all suddenly ceased to matter.

When the orgasm hit him in a devastating wave of empty pleasure, he pressed his forehead against the concrete that seemed icy-cold, spilling on Silva’s hand that still continued to move. Then Raoul grabbed Q’s hips with both hands, thrusting faster, losing the rhythm. On the edge of his release he bit into Q’s neck in the already familiar manner with a muffled growl. Q gasped, throwing his head back and squeezing his legs tighter, feeling the hot come slide down the inner surface of his thighs. His knees buckled, refusing to hold him, and he quickly leaned against the wall, nearly falling.

Silva caught him with both hands, hauling onto his feet, turned him around and kissed sloppily in some desperate hurry. Q frantically sucked at his mouth, putting his arms around his neck, stroking his hair – the sexual release did not reduce the overwhelming, possessive desire _to have_ , to never let go. Perhaps, at that moment they both felt the same thing: that there were just a few seconds left before they would have to return to their roles.

Finally, Raoul pulled back and looked him in the eye - openly, not even trying to say anything. He turned around and walked quickly to the door, adjusting and buttoning up his clothes on the way, smoothing disheveled hair. But he stopped in the doorway, paused for a second, and before disappearing behind the door he said without looking back, “Do you know what the greatest loneliness is? It’s when the one you adore is so close... but forever beyond your reach.”

Through the metal door he couldn’t hear Q’s quiet laughter that was slowly growing louder. After a couple of seconds, he slid down the wall, already laughing like a madman until he was shivering of this hysterical laughter. He pulled up his pants and walked to the cot, cleaned himself with the cloth that covered it and tried to adjust his ruined clothes. Then he climbed onto the creaking bed, hugged himself and laughed again, almost inaudibly, pulling his knees to his face.

‘The one you adore’, what passionate words, he thought. Earlier, before the explosion, they would have stricken him right in the heart. But now Q was absolutely sure that if Silva used them not just because of his love for grandiose phrases, he obviously wasn’t talking about the Quartermaster. No, there was a very different number one figure in this game for Silva. And Q was only a pawn that you need to eat in order make the next move.

The move to the Queen.

 

† † † † †

 

“All that physical stuff, so dull, so dull,” Silva confessed to Bond who was sitting tied to a chair. Then stepped closer, leaned to free the agent’s hands.

“Chasing spies – so old-fashioned. Your knees must be killing you.”

Bond replied with a silent frown, and Silva quickly shook his head.

“England!” he jerked his chin upward, rolling his eyes. “The Empire! MI6!”

He laughed softly.

“You’re living in a ruin as well. You just don’t know it yet. At least here there are no old ladies giving orders and no little - _bip!_ \- gadgets from those fools in Q-Branch. Oh, by-y-y the way,” his eyes grew comically, as if he had just suddenly remembered, and his lips stretched into a happy smile. “Your new assistant is also here with us.”

He waved at his men and immediately the door opened and Q was walked in, accompanied by two armed guards. For a moment on Bond’s face flashed a series of emotions: surprise, anxiety, annoyance; but then it all disappeared behind a mask of indifference. The agent knew his role well.

“Have a seat, Q,” Silva pointed to a chair in a welcoming gesture. “I just told James that we were only two left, I almost forgot about you!”

This grim metaphor that came to Q’s mind in the cell where he woke up appeared again before his eyes, when he was led down the corridor – it seemed he could even hear the chaotic buzz of the orchestra pit before the play: shrill of violins, hoarse bellow of bassoons. Maybe it's the prolonged effect of drugs in his blood, or his own chemistry – chemistry of a steadily developing insanity.

He was a bit mistaken: this was not an avant-garde performance in a minimalistic scenery, this was a good old Shakespearean drama. Silva looked as he should have, eye-catching, with a touch of fakeness. His surroundings – that’s what seemed unnatural now. Where were the multicolored spotlights that cast circles of light on the main characters; the extras, frozen in poses of surprise, horror or delight? Where was the painted back-cloth with the sun and the moon, the platform, going down to the stage for the entry of Deus ex machina? Q noticed an old elevator at the far end of the hall and smiled involuntarily – he could bet that Silva appeared before Bond from this particular elevator.

He started feeling a bit awkward that he didn’t have the handcuffs on him – of course, he posed no danger with rifles aimed at him, but now it looked as if he forgot to bring his props to the stage.

“So what was I talking about?” Silva turned back to Bond, pressed a hand to his forehead, then raised it up expressively. “Oh yes! Here, if you wanted, you can pick your own secret missions – as I do. Hmm? Name it! Destabilize a multinational by manipulating stocks - _bip!_ \- Easy! Interrupt transmissions from a spy satellite over Kabul - done! Hmm... rig an election in Uganda – all to the highest bidder!”

“Or a gas explosion in London,” Bond raised his head with a mockingly interested expression on his face, corners of his lips curling into a smile.

“Mhm, just point and click,” Raoul sent a flirtatious glance at Q.

“Well, everybody needs a hobby,” Bond looked totally indifferent again, but when he cast another look at Q, more attentive this time, clearly readable anger appeared on his face.

“So what’s yours?” asked the ex-agent seriously.

“Resurrection,” Bond almost growled, glaring at Silva with a threat.

And suddenly Q realized how he must look.

His hair tousled, his shirt torn, lower lip bleeding. What is more, he got nose bleedings from the nerves and the drugs that he took himself and that were pumped into him during the kidnapping; he wiped the blood with his sleeve. A couple of hickeys on his neck. Fuck. And nail scratches on his chest. Bond must think that he had been beaten. More than that, _raped_. Q swallowed, blinking and involuntarily arranging his shirt collar to cover the marks, looking down in shame; and Bond, of course, saw it as confirmation of his thoughts.

Silva exhaled noisily, which probably should have been a laugh, but his face showed only deep irritation from the banality of Bond’s words.

“Let me show you something,” in a sweeping gesture he invited Bond to follow him, heading for the door.

Bond got up, took a couple of steps and looked back at Q – for a split second there was hesitation in his movements – but then he followed the ex-agent confidently.

Q didn’t know if he wanted to laugh or to hide his eyes again from the intolerable shame. If only Bond knew... He would have looked at his assistant quite differently: Q could vividly imagine the look of disgust in his piercing blue eyes. He would not call him big names like ‘traitor’. Just ‘slut’.

Silva and Bond vanished into the bright sunlight outside the doorway, and Q suddenly realized why there were no handcuffs on him. He was not a part of this play, he was just a spectator. Did Silva decide it today in that cell? Or is this just a fragment of a larger concept, perhaps, some plan to frame him? Q rubbed his temples, and one of the guards who stood near immediately poked him between the shoulder blades with the gun and barked something in an unknown language. Apparently, he wasn’t supposed to move much. Q squinted at the light, pouring onto the floor through stained dusty glass and thought of the transmitter, which he handed to Bond what seemed like many weeks ago. 007 must find a moment to activate it. There won’t be another chance for both of them.

The wait became almost unbearable when gunshots were heard outside. First just two, to which his guards didn’t react at all, and then an entire round: Q heard a couple of quick phrases behind him, flinched from the pressure of a gun muzzle appearing on the back of his neck. One of the men cautiously approached the door with his weapon drawn, but when he reached the doorway he was shot. Q felt how the remaining guard tensed, and there was cold sweat on his own forehead. But after a few seconds 007 entered the room, dragging Silva along with a gun to his temple, his hands cuffed behind his back, and an extraction team in bullet-proof vests behind them. The conversation was short, and after a minute Q was already getting into helicopter with Bond.

 

“Are you all right? Nothing’s broken?” Bond’s tone was unemotional, but there was worry in his eyes.

“I'm all right, Mr. Bond.”

Q noticed that he avoided the slightest touch, and became completely convinced that the agent was acting on the protocol of behavior with victims of sexual abuse. He sighed, frantically trying to figure out his best options. With such a ‘diagnosis’ psychological evaluation was inevitable, and that meant removal from the case at least for a couple of days, if not weeks. He couldn’t let that happen.

“As soon as we get to the mainland, I'll take you to the hospital. We have almost 24 hours before the flight to England,” Bond looked at the marks on Q’s neck, and he could barely restrain himself from covering them with his hand.

“There's no need,” the Quartermaster’s voice sounded calm and confident, he looked straight into the agent’s eyes. “I know what it looks like, but I assure you, there was no penetrative sexual intercourse between me and any of these terrorists.”

007 looked relieved that his assistant brought the matter up himself.

“Then how do you explain... Look, if he made you suck him off or something, it's still rape, and you need...”

“We were interrupted,” Q came up with a reply. “Nothing happened. One of his men reported on a problem that required urgent intervention.”

Bond relaxed a little, but his face didn’t betray whether he believed the Quartermaster or not.

“I'm really okay, 007.”

“Fine,” the agent nodded and leaned back in his seat. After a pause, he switched the topic, “I heard you're afraid to fly?”

“Yes. And?” the Quartermaster turned his face to Bond, who looked at him questioningly.

“You keep your composure well,” the agent smirked.

“Well, I don’t want to lose face in front of an agent with such an impeccable demeanor. How was it – in your obituary... ‘an exemplar of British fortitude’?”

Bond just smirked again. In fact, Q probably was on the verge of nervous exhaustion so if the flight did add to it, it was almost imperceptible.

“Where did you get that?” Q stared at the bottle of scotch that appeared in the agent’s hand.

“Silva’s treat,” 007 answered seriously and drank straight from the bottle.

“And you took it with you?”

“It’s 50-year-old Macallan, would be such a waste to leave it,” the agent replied coolly.

“What if there is poison or something else!”

“No poison, I already checked,” Bond finally smiled again; and Q also could no longer keep the disapproving expression on his face. He smiled too, accepted the bottle from the agent and took a big gulp.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The more you comment the faster I update ;)


	7. Carmesi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gosh, smut again, when did we even have time for the plot? xD  
> basically just boring 00q porn the whole chapter, sorry >

The hotel room, where Q was to spend his last night in Hong Kong, was too big for one person, it’s floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Victoria Harbour. It seemed to Q that any second, like in a bad dream, the floor would lurch, and he will fall straight through the huge window. He even had to do his breathing exercises, trying to calm his nerves. Too much has happened in the last two days and such high number of flights was definitely not for him. Though Q would have agreed to a non-stop flight around the globe as long as he wouldn’t have to think about all that was bugging him now.

Q changed his clothes, regretting that Hong Kong is too hot in October to wear a turtleneck. Although he told himself to worry less about the marks on his neck and be more concerned with whether Bond trusts him. The Quartermaster didn’t give him any reason not to, but as anyone who has something to hide, Q began to see signs of distrust in almost every gesture. And there was something else, perhaps even more important. One small detail: the amazing, impenetrable serenity of Silva’s face when Bond was dragging him along with the gun to his temple. What was it? Perfect composure of an ex-agent? or was he expecting this particular scenario? Did he want to get caught and be sent to London – speed delivery straight to M? Were there more people at MI6, besides the not-so-clever Quartermaster, who were able to help Silva?

He was dizzy with questions, and there were no answers. Q blinked twice, as if trying to get rid of a speck of dust in his eye, almost pushing out the contacts. He could take a pill and go to sleep, but he had enough substances in his body for the next half a year or so. Better get by with more natural means: go downstairs to the bar and have a drink.

The lobby-bar of Marco Polo hotel met him with ambient glow of designer lamps and a smiling Filipino hostess at the entrance. The room wasn’t overcrowded; and Q wasn’t surprised to spot at once a familiar figure, sitting at the long bar table. He slowly walked to the bar, carefully sat on a chair next to the agent.

“To come to a bar that serves 102 varieties of rum to drink scotch, that is so... I wanted to say your style, but I'm afraid to be mistaken. I still don’t know you very well,” Q slightly wondered where this occasional soft tone comes from.

“I think you know enough,” said the agent, not turning to his coordinator. “You look like a person who does his homework: you probably have my file memorized by now.”

“There are just the facts. It can help to understand your personality better, but a lot of things are left unexplained. For example, why you are nervous and are drinking something that you are used to and know exactly what dose you need... although the operation was successful. Appleton, please,” he said to the bartender. He did not know much about the varieties of rum, but he wasn’t going to follow Bond’s example. “I don’t suppose that this Silva unsettled you that much.”

Bond's eyes flashed, giving him an unreadable look. Then he smirked and turned to Q, leaning with his elbow on the countertop.

“But he's pretty good at getting under the skin. Including the part where he was about to get into my pants.”

“He does have a way of finding weak spots,” the bartender put a glass in front of Q, and he made a sip of dark rum, not taking his eyes off Bond. “I'm not sure if that was yours though.”

“Yes, here he was mistaken,” Bond chuckled merrily, finishing his glass and making a gesture to the bartender for the next one.

The Quartermaster personally heard Silva offering Bond to take his side. At that moment, Q saw that all three of them realize that this was just a farce, a rather simple psychological game. He felt that it should be clear to Silva that Bond is not the kind of person capable of betrayal. But now he was not so sure anymore: did the ex-agent succeed in sowing doubt in Bond’s mind after all?

“What did he say to you, before I joined you two?” Q asked softly. “There wasn’t really much of a conversation with me.” He took a decent gulp.

Bond looked at him, took a sip from the new glass.

“He seemed to have found a soul mate in me – described how much we have in common.”

“You don’t think that he was honest with you?” Q frowned. It was the most dangerous and effective way Silva could only choose. The worst in Silva was his ability to deceive without telling a single lie. Q knew it better of all people.

“Honest - no. Ruthlessly straightforward - yes.”

“Bond, whatever he told you, you know that he is not on your side,” he shook his head. “His goal was to confuse you. He was trying to do the same with me. The only difference is that in your case he decided to fuck with your brain.”

The agent chuckled and said smugly, “I suppose you’re not the one to teach me, Q.”

Q was about to say something sarcastic back, but restrained himself.

“Do you continue to consider me a useless creature, 007?” he asked without malice. “You really like to underestimate people.”

“Oh, I never said you were useless,” Bond's eyes gleamed merrily in the soft shadows. “You are very good at handing out things. Guns or towels, for example.”

Q cocked an eyebrow and sneered.

“What a generous compliment. Please don’t tell me you are already drunk enough that you need my help getting back into your room to hand you out bathroom necessities.”

“Who underestimates people now?”

“Well then prove me wrong, Mr. Bond. I'll be impressed if you can stand up and walk to the elevator in a straight line.”

“Is that a challenge?” the agent’s face was rather serious, only his eyes were laughing. “And why do I need to hurry to my room, Q? I just came down here.”

“And already got drunk? Your physical abilities really are excessive. Or is it regarding drinking only?” Q drained his glass and put it back on the counter with a thud.

“You want to give me an unscheduled physical evaluation, Q?”

“Why not,” Q slightly tilted his head to one side, slid a finger down the cool surface of his empty glass. “So, 007, do you accept the challenge? Or shamefully refuse?”

“You've read your _facts_ \- when did I refuse a challenge?” the agent’s smile was unusually broad, even though his eyes were quite sober.

Q slipped from the bar stool and went unhurriedly towards the hall. Bond threw the money on the table and quickly stood up.

He caught up with Q in the elevator. When the doors closed and the cabin glided noiselessly up to the tenth floor, the Quartermaster turned to the agent and without saying a word firmly pulled him by the lapels of his jacket and pressed his lips to his mouth.

Bond responded to the kiss immediately, accurate and precise but completely relaxed. After all, sex was a weapon too, and handling weapons was Bond’s profession. His tongue slid on Q’s without much pressure, hands almost immediately found themselves on the Quartermaster’s ass. Q felt a little dizzy – must be the rum, which effect wasn’t noticeable at all while he was in a sitting position.

They missed the quiet melodic ding and didn’t pull away from each other when the cabin arrived to their floor. An elderly Chinese couple, waiting for the elevator, stared at them with silent condemnation. Bond made such a straight face in response, still holding his hand on Q’s backside, that Q couldn’t help but laugh. Quite ironically, they probably looked like lovers, who have just started their relationship and were shameless in their happiness.

“My room or yours?” the agent murmured in his ear when they were walking down the corridor.

“Mine,” Q slightly turned his head, soft curls sweeping on Bond’s cheek, took out the magnetic key card, “I don’t feel safe enough on your territory,” and he smiled with such promise, as if he was someone else. Someone beautiful and spoiled; and that someone secretly was proud that he led Bond to his room.

The agent barely let him shut the door from the inside and pressed him against the wall, kissing him more urgently, making him feel the aftertaste of good whiskey on his tongue.

“How would you like to..?” Bond muttered hoarsely in his ear, running his hand through the dark hair, and Q felt really smug that he could make Bond’s voice, usually unemotional, sound so sensual; though with the help of alcohol, too.

Q smiled with an edge of his obscenely red mouth and unbuttoned the agent’s shirt, pulled it off his broad shoulders. And clinging to Bond, sliding his fingers delicately on the back of his neck, he said, looking him in the eye, “Make me beg for mercy. If you can.”

Whether from those words - although Q was sure that it was impossible to impress Bond with dirty talk - or from this ‘official’ permission there appeared some new shine to Bond’s eyes, and he began to remove their clothes a little more hastily, however, without losing his refined gallantry. Sometimes it was truly amazing how naturally Bond combined roughness and brutality with genuinely British tact. The Quartermaster’s own sense of tact was sabotaged by rum to a greater extent than he thought: on the way to the bedroom, they knocked off and smashed a lamp and a flower vase, but Q only laughed in response.

By the time they got to the bed, the agent was in his boxers, while his assistant in addition to his underwear had his shirt still on - a pattern that was more fitting for women, with some scientific detachment Q noted to himself. Bond guided him to fall on his back, hovered over him. He began to unbutton his shirt, starting from the bottom, kissing his lean stomach wetly. The trail of kisses followed his quick fingers up, and with the last button he shifted slightly to the side, tickling the sensitive skin on Q’s ribs by his two-day stubble and circling the hard nipple with his tongue.

Q moaned, blissfully stretching and running his fingers in Bond’s short blond hair. He really must have been pretty drunk, because without any embarrassment he lowered his hands, pulled off the agent’s boxers and squeezed his firm buttocks. An unintended thought appeared in his mind, that since the moment the elevator-doors closed behind them all went too smooth, like a scene from a movie. A beautiful setting, an experienced lover, not a shadow of shame and no sign of that feverish haste, desperate need to... No, this is not what he should be thinking about.

The desire grew slowly and lazily, pulse and breathing becoming more frequent, the moist sultriness of a Hong Kong night settling on the skin with a thin layer of sweat. The agent moved closer to him, the heat enveloping their bodies like a cloud, and pressed his lips to Q’s neck, running his hand through heavy curls. His fingers slid at the base of the neck, accidentally pressing at the bruised bite mark - and a familiar hot wave surged through Q, an uncontrolled groan escaped his lips and his already hard cock twitched. The tactile association instantly brought to life the unwelcome image - as if he felt the familiar touch of Silva’s hands, sensed the smell of his skin. And then he felt that torturous need, something between the desire to give himself, to be taken and a demanding, greedy lust. With Silva, he could not satisfy his thirst for touches, their encounters seemed unbearably short; and now Q was clinging blindly to a man leaning over him, hands gliding over his back, randomly kissing his shoulders, his neck, biting and licking his skin - all the things he wanted to do to someone else.

Bond grunted approvingly into his neck, canting his hips and rubbing his hard cock on Q’s stomach, the agent’s hands caught his wrists and pinned them to the bed above his head for a moment, ignoring a demanding groan.

“Do you have lube?” he said hoarsely, letting go of the wrists.

“In the bathroom... some lotion I guess,” Q touched Bond’s chin with his fingers, nipped at his lower lip. “Get it.”

Bond's eyes still were bright and cold, and Q regained awareness of how dangerous this man could be. The more exiting was to caress him and give him commands. He closed his eyes, as Bond’s touch disappeared from his skin. The heat, however, didn’t disappear at all; Q took a deep breath, trying to level his panting a little and to throw all unwanted thoughts out of his head - in fact, to throw away everything.

Q felt the mattress sagging again under the agent’s weight - he returned silently and unexpectedly fast. Q opened his eyes: Bond was sitting between his legs, opening the condom package. Q sat up, watching him from under half-closed eyelids, stretched out his hand, slowly, sliding it up Bond’s thigh and reached to him, “Let me.”

He took torn package from Bond’s hands, then leaned down and, before putting the condom on Bond, couldn’t resist licking a broad stripe up his cock experimentally.

Bond sucked in air noisily through his teeth. Then reached into his dark hair and pulled, forcing his assistant to straighten up, pressed his lips to his mouth in a sweeping kiss, unceremoniously pushing him back on the bed, pinning Q with his weight. The Quartermaster groaned into his mouth, arching underneath his heavy body. Bond moved a bit lower, kissing Q’s neck near his Adam's apple and pulled off his underwear in one quick motion, making his erection pop out from under the cotton fabric. Q spread his legs wider, opening in front of him, and when Bond guided his broad, rough hand between his legs, moaned lewdly throwing his head back. He could be more restrained, but he wanted to be loud. As if someone invisible was watching them, and that someone had to hear how Q likes it when Bond touches him.

Through his moan he heard the click of the lotion’s lid, smelled the subtle scent of chemical coconut. The moan stuck in Q’s throat with a sharp intake of air when he suddenly felt wet heat around the head of his cock, hot tongue licking away precome, sliding across the veins on the underside of his shaft. Q slightly propped himself on the elbows and looked, immediately almost regretting this action: he thought he was going to come just from the sight of Bond’s lips stretched around his cock. He turned away, panting and licking his lips - and then looked again. Bond narrowed his eyes slightly, like a sated cat, staring at flushed Q: he could pretend being unimpressed any other time, but now it was evident that he was never sucked off by a man before.

Bond swirled his tongue around the tip and let Q’s cock slip in deeper, hollowed his cheeks; and the Quartermaster shut his eyes, throwing back his head with a groan, clutching at the sheets. He felt a slick finger entering him, but instantly forgot about it when Bond accelerated the rhythm slightly, bobbing his head and producing obscene wet sounds with his mouth.

The same unwanted image flashed behind Q’s closed eye-lids, but he mentally clicked the red ‘X’ in the upper right corner, and it was gone before the face he would like to forget appeared from the feverish darkness. Before Bond's hands - one holding his cock at the base, the other opening him, two fingers inside almost without any pain, fingertips sliding exactly where he needs them – turned into Silva’s hands. Or even worse, Tiago’s hands.

Q writhed on the bed, tossing his head from side to side, allowing the sharp, animal pleasure wash over him. He begged for something, breathed out words in a hoarse whisper, but didn’t really know what he was saying. His mind finally welcomed the blankness he longed for.

The agent released his cock from his mouth, smirking when the Quartermaster involuntarily jerked his hips up, trying to prolong the contact, shifted his body closer, bending Q’s knees. Q choked a cry caused by pleasure and pain in equal measure as Bond slowly entered him, placing his strong arm around the lean waist. He paused to let Q’s body adapt, running his other hand in sweaty hair, hot gasping breathing on his neck.

Q closed his legs around Bond, pressing his heels into the agent’s lower back.

“Move,” he murmured, dragging his fingernails gently on Bond’s strong neck.

With the first measured roll of his hips Bond’s hand pulled the dark hair painfully, his lips sucked into the skin, leaving a new mark on top of the old bruise. The second thrust was rougher, and Q grunted, biting his lip from almost enough friction on his cock between their stomachs, cried out when the agent hit the right spot inside of him skillfully, sending scalding shivers through his entire body.

007 probably acted more cautiously with women, but with Q he didn’t seem to hold back at all, gradually increasing the rhythm, thrusts deep and forceful. And it was just what Q needed: no thoughts, no memories. All feelings were centered between the legs. Q met each thrust, pressing into him, grabbing at broad back, managing at some point to sink his teeth into Bond’s shoulder. Bond muffled a growl in response, and started pounding into him particularly hard - so that the cries of his assistant probably were heard by their neighbors.

Excruciating intensity of pleasure reached its limit, the heat became unbearable - it seemed like thousand tiny splashes of ice-cold water fell all over his body; Q arched, one hand clutching the sheets, the second sliding down his stomach. Bond rose slightly, without slowing down, caught his hand; strong fingers wrapped around the base of Q’s leaking member, causing a loud sob.

“I thought you wanted me to make you beg,” the agent muttered hoarsely.

Q swore under his breath, looking at the man with wide eyes.

“Did you say something?” Bond raised an eyebrow and hit his prostate again in a hard precise thrust. Q gasped, squeezing his eyes shut. He felt like he was going to die if Bond wouldn’t remove his hand.

“Please,” he whispered, swallowing hard and licking his lips.

“Please, what?”

Damn Bond. But he did ask for it.

“Let me come… please,” he gasped, grabbing the agent’s wrist with hot trembling fingers.

Bond muffled a throaty moan and unclenched his fingers, grabbing Q’s hips tightly with both hands; and with his next shove white darkness washed over Q’s mind.

When he was able to perceive the world around him again, Bond was frantically gasping for breath in the postorgasm haze too, his forehead resting on the sheets near Q’s head, still not releasing the steel grip on the other man’s hips.

A minute later, he finally relaxed his hands, stroked the red marks on the pale skin in a soothing movement; and the Quartermaster ran his fingers through short wet hair on the back of the head.

“Well, I suppose, we fell into step, 007?”

Satisfaction was complete and didn’t taste of shame or regret. Q was rather grateful for that.

“I think we did,” Bond replied with a smirk, carefully pulling out of Q.

He hissed quietly through his teeth, but the pain dulled quickly; he stretched lazily and yawned.

“We have an early start tomorrow,” he said sleepily, “and if I oversleep, it will be your fault.”

“9:30, check out,” automatically murmured 007, tying the removed condom and then collapsing on the bed.

Q pulled the sheet over himself and as he closed his eyes he was rather glad to start falling asleep immediately: for some reason he had no doubts that Bond would snore.


	8. Negro

The next morning began with a mercilessly loud alarm in Q’s phone. The Quartermaster opened his eyes, blinking slowly, and Bond mumbled something unmentionable and rolled over to his other side. The better it was for Q: he was in the shower first. Drying himself with a huge white towel, he noticed finger-shaped bruises on his thighs - but it didn’t feel like he was looking at a body of a stranger, as once in Strasbourg. However, there was a dim feeling that all this wasn’t real, as if he was playing a role. Perhaps, that was the last convulsions of his former self, the person he thought he ceased to be when he began his career at MI6. Now it was high time for him to really disappear completely. After all, Matthew Ryan couldn’t work for intelligence, he didn’t fit well into this spy thriller in which he fights, shoots and also takes part in an erotic scene with the main character. But Q was good enough for that role.

He shaved carefully, washed away the remnants of foam from his face and took off the eye-contacts - in any case, he wasn’t going to wear them for a month, as the model suggested. When he returned to the room, there was already no sign of Bond, who seemed hopelessly asleep just ten minutes ago; and after another ten minutes Q found the agent in the restaurant downstairs, sat down beside him at the table for breakfast, troubling himself just with the minimal small talk.

A direct flight was already organized for them, accompanied by several agents from the extraction team, the first class freed of all other passengers as a precaution. Q, having forgotten his decision not to stuff his body with unnecessary drugs, took two sleeping pills, and the flight to London was a calm, dreamless void.

In MI6 there weren’t any troubles, just the standard written report and two short interviews. Sex with Bond, apparently, was Q’s most reasonable action for quite some time. 007 was surely convinced that Q didn’t have any psychological problems, so there was no reason to report the suspected abuse – any way, not after leaving marks of his own on the territory of the supposed crime.

 

Q would prefer not to think about it at all, but it was impossible not to find out where Silva was kept, because he awaited the transition to Belmarsh Prison right in the current headquarters of MI6. In the same building where Q was at the moment. And every now and again his thoughts wandered back to Silva, as if his presence was tangible even through the armored glass cell and four-feet walls that divided them.

Q went to Shanghai feeling that there was nothing more important than to neutralize Silva, believing that it would ease his conscience and clarify his mind. But now, secretly connecting to CCTV and watching the low-quality video in the corner of his laptop screen - sneakily, without switching to full screen mode - he understood that his doubts only multiplied. And it wasn’t because Q worried that the cyber-terrorist let himself be caught too easily. Q had to admit that it was hard for him to see Silva in that glass cage, humbly sitting with his hands folded in his lap, looking a bit bored, like a naughty child who doesn’t understand for what he is being punished.

Most cameras were located above the eye-level, looking down; but he found one that allowed seeing Silva’s face. He occasionally switched to that camera and watched the large-pixel video; and there was just one thought gnawing at his brain: Silva is sick, really sick.

But when he closed the window, he began to think about other things altogether. Perhaps Silva did partially lose his sanity after what happened to him. But which facts suggested this seeming madness? Q listed all Silva’s actions in his mind – he was not so sure any of them were inadequate or spontaneous. First of all, in Feng Shui Inn, Silva appeared to change his plans about asking Q to help him, and their meeting in Strasbourg might seem to be a spontaneous impulse as well, but as it turned out, all of it was part of the plan – the plan to confuse Q, to appeal to sympathy, to make him Silva’s unintended accomplice. The plan worked perfectly. And the more Q thought about it, the more he was sure that Silva was now sitting in MI6 cell deliberately.

It looked like revenge was all that now occupied the former agent’s mind. But the Quartermaster couldn’t understand what Silva was planning next. There were several options Q could think of but, for some reason, he still didn’t find himself rushing to M’s office for report. He reminded himself about the desire to make things right after the explosion; but when he looked at the security video again, his thoughts just swirled in circles and he wasn’t sure about anything at all.

Revenge can have different motivations; pretty often people find it reasonable and even honorable. For example, if a person restores justice like some blockbuster hero. The ex-agent though certainly wasn’t fighting for justice - he cared only about his wounded pride, he couldn’t bear to be treated by M like he was insignificant and disposable. Q knew he should feel repulsion and disapproval, but he couldn’t – just like he couldn’t imagine the suffering that the ex-agent endured. What was going on in his mind, exhausted by unbearable pain and, even worse, the knowledge that help was not coming, that he had been betrayed? What was going on there now?

Q switched to another camera-view and saw Bond, standing nearby in the shadows like a statue. And what is he doing there? Silva slowly turned to face the entrance. It seemed that he smiled and said something- to hear what's going on in the room Q, of course, couldn’t. He switched cameras again and saw M entering the room, followed by Tanner; apparently, for questioning, or rather to inform Silva about his fate. Q squinted, looking at moving with a half-second delay pixels.

Silva clearly laughed, throwing back his head, turning back and forth on his seat. Then he began to speak again. Usually, when Raoul spoke, he always illustrated his words with gestures, but now his hands were folded together, as if shackled, his shoulders stooped. Q was able to notice that he was talking only by slight nods of his head – from this view he couldn’t see his face, slightly lowered down. His whole posture seemed so unusual... even timid? Sad?

Suddenly Silva dropped to his knees, leaning forward, very close to the glass. Maybe he just wanted his face to be on M’s eye-level, but to Q it looked like submission, or even remorse - and Q had to remind himself that it was just because he wasn’t able to hear what he said. M replied, and Raoul quickly stood up. M turned with some sort of proud anger and headed for the exit, but then stopped and turned around: apparently, Silva called her out. He got down on one knee, and Q switched the camera to see his face - God knows why he decided to do it at that particular moment.

The Quartermaster froze and stopped breathing for a few seconds. Silva ran his fingers in his mouth, and Q couldn’t figure out what he was doing until he took out some sort of denture plate. His left cheek sagged terribly, and he grinned with a gaping black hole instead of a smile.

Q felt sickeningly dizzy, the blood drained from his face. He knew, of course, about the damage to Silva’s jaw, he knew about the prosthesis. But nothing can prepare you for the moment when the face that you know for so long - that you _love_ for so long - is transformed into a monstrous, mutilated mask.

He did not flinch, didn’t move at all, but someone screamed inside his head. _What have they done to you. What have they done to you._

 

Not wounded pride was Silva’s motive. He needed to return all that pain because he had no more strength to carry it in himself.

 

Q was still staring at the screen with unseeing eyes when Silva put the prosthesis back in place and laughed convulsively. Blood roared in Q’s ears.

“Sir, are you listening?”

“I’m sorry, yes?” the Quartermaster mumbled absently, automatically shutting the laptop. Apparently he didn’t even notice that he was addressed to by a colleague.

“You are needed in Sector B.”

 

Bond was already waiting for him in front of a metal case with the laptop confiscated from Silva.

“Can you hack into it?”

Q only smirked in reply, turning the computer on - and immediately running into a way too familiar barrier.

“It seems to me, he’s done a number of slightly unusual things. He’s established failsafe protocols to wipe the memory if there’s any attempt to access certain files,” Q adjusted his glasses and began typing hurriedly. “Only six people in the world could program safeguards like that.”

“Of course there are,” Bond clearly didn’t share his interest in the hacking process, only the result was important to him. “Can you get past them?”

“I invented them,” Q didn’t even blink, making this rather suspicious confession.

007 smiled with his lips only, looking frowningly at the Quartermaster’s back, and if Q saw this look, he would have every reason to doubt all over again whether Bond trusted him.

“Right then. Let's see what you’ve got for us, Mr. Silva,” he connected the laptop to the network and hit Enter. “We’re in... It's his Omega site. Most encrypted level he has.”

Bond turned to the big screen on the wall, slightly squinted, stepping closer.

Q knew how to hack it, he helped Tiago write some of these encryptions too. It all seemed too simple, as if Silva couldn’t come up with anything better than this since 1997. There must be a trap inside... The right thing to do would be to stop immediately and disconnect the cyber-terrorist’s computer from their network. But Q, feeling as if in a dream, where you can’t control your own actions, just bit his lip and arranged the fragments of the key-code in a column.

“Stop. Go in on that,” it seemed that Bond had noticed the parts of the word that Q highlighted. He zoomed in the text, combined the fragments. “Granborough. Granborough Road. It’s an old Tube station, been closed for years. Use that as a key.”

 _Enter._ Breathe in, breathe out. Silva’s program will complete installation in their system at any second.

“Oh, look, it’s a map!”

“It’s London. Subterranean London,” nodded 007, looking at the red branches of railway tracks, paths and channels.

Any second now... There was a pneumatic hiss behind them, and Q immediately turned around, staring at the opening hatchways with believable surprise.

“Why are the doors open?”

It took exactly three seconds for Bond to react. He had already rushed out of the room when a system security breach warning popped up on the screen.

“Can someone tell me how the hell he got into our system?” with unexpected anger Q asked loudly, turned and looked at Silva’s computer. _La calavera_ appeared on the screen of the laptop.

_‘Not such a clever boy’._

Did Raoul really believe Q wouldn’t guess? Or is it just him saying ‘hello’? Well, there was certainly nothing clever in Q’s decision to take Silva’s side. Although in the end, it turned out to be of little importance which side he was on, whether he was acting against the ex-agent, or doing nothing at all – from the very beginning everything went according to Silva’s plan. And Q was so tired of being a limp puppet; but now, while deliberately helping the cyber-terrorist for the first time, he felt as if he gained control of his life again. What a paradox.

“Oh shit,” he rushed to the laptop, - it wasn’t hard to play dismay in the state he was now - began to unplug the cables just for show. “Shit, shit, shit!”

Then he rested his hands on the table, lowered his head, pretending to unsuccessfully hide the shame from his mistake, and said dramatically, “He hacked us.”

Suddenly he felt a surprising calm verging on indifference. He didn’t care at the moment that he was a conscious traitor now, jeopardizing at least M and Bond, who was already hot on Silva’s trail. Once he saw Silva’s mutilated face, saw him standing humbly on his knees, Q’s ethics, never too strong to begin with, lost all meaning to him.

Run, he thought, run faster.

 

But a minute later, while leading 007 in the tunnels, Q felt his anxiety returning. There was no remorse, but the burden of responsibility - if not before M at least before Bond - still was upon him. How ridiculous. It was impossible to play for both sides at a time; but Q didn’t want Bond to get killed, as well as he hoped that the ex-agent would stay alive.

“Bond, this isn’t an escape, this was years in the planning. He wanted us to capture him, he wanted us to access his computer, it was all planned. Blowing up HQ, knowing the emergency protocols, knowing we’d retreat down here...”

“I’ve got all that,” Bond’s voice sounded flat as usual. “It’s what he’s got planned next that worries me.”

M, of course he goes after M. Q pressed his lips together.

 

“Where are you now?”

“Temple Tube station. Along with half of London.”

“Oh, I see you, there you are.”

“I know where I am, Q!” Bond started to get annoyed. “Where is he?..”

“Give us a second, I’m looking for him.”

“...There’s too many people. I can’t see him.”

“Welcome to rush hour on the Tube,” Q couldn’t refrain from sarcasm. “Not something you’d know much about.”

One of the cameras showed Silva almost up close. He was already in the police uniform, with the cap pulled down over his eyes, but Q knew his posture all too well not to recognize him right away.

“The train’s leaving,” there was impatience in Bond’s voice. “Do I get on the train?”

“I’m not sure he’s on, give us a minute,” Q was giving Raoul time - after all, he might really not see Silva, who could blame him?

 _Come on, come on..._ The doors began to close, and Bond practically barked in his ear, “Do I get on the train?”

The doors closed, the train started to move, Bond wouldn’t make it. Q could afford a bit of cynicism.

“Bond.”

“What?”

“Get on the train.”

 

“Where are you..?”

“Take a wild guess, Q.”

He did make it. Shit. Well it was really silly to underestimate Bond. But Q had no doubts that Silva was no worse. Perhaps even better.

Q froze at the sound of gunshots in his earpiece when the agent was in the tunnels again.

“I won’t miss next time, Mr. Silva!” 007 said loudly, and the Quartermaster sucked in air through his teeth, probably loud enough for Bond to hear. A tense pause. Must be Silva talking. Q’s fingers, clutching at the edge of the table, turned white; he flinched when suddenly there was a sound of explosion.

“I do hope that wasn’t for me,” the agent’s voice still sounded calm and his assistant forced himself to take a deep breath. Immediately there was a much longer crashing noise.

Q’s heart was pounding painfully in his chest as he listened intently to the restored silence.

“007?”

“Still here.”

The Quartermaster swallowed.

“Is Silva alive?”

Damn, he sure phrased it wrong.

“Escaped.”

 

The job of a coordinator was much more difficult than Q could suppose. Now he even thought that he would have preferred to risk his life under the fire, than to sit and listen, unable to help or at least see what was happening. And hearing the noise of the gunshots in his earpiece, he winced internally every time, biting his lip.

 

When the fire in the courtroom was over, and Q was waiting to find out if the attack was successful, Bond’s calm voice called him out, “Q, I need help.”

Not yet the end then. Q squinted at the screen, “I’m tracking the car, where are you going?”

“I’ve got M. We're about to disappear.”

“What?” Q’s fingers stopped typing, hovering above the keyboard.

“I need you to lay a trail of breadcrumbs impossible to follow for anyone except Silva. Think you can do it?”

Q blinked. This was exactly what Silva would have probably wanted as well. Maybe Bond did figure everything out? and now, knowing that there was a traitor at MI6, wanted to take matters into his own hands completely, shielding M not only from the HQ’s help but from the unwanted interference as well? The Quartermaster nervously glanced over his shoulder, lowered his voice.

“I’m guessing this isn’t strictly official?” but internally he seemed to be asking a different question.

“Not even remotely,” somehow menacing answered the agent.

“So much for my promising career in espionage,” Q took a sip of cold tea from his cup.

He had no idea how close to the truth he was.


	9. Nàcar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The last chapter finally!!! (There will be one extra, sort of an epilogue).  
> There is some angst and violence (it's not very graphic), but it's not all bad ;)

Q opened his eyes. Outside his small apartment was another grey and endlessly empty, like winter sea, day. Cloudy sky filled the room with merciless light that hurt his eyes; he fumbled for his cell phone on the bedside table, slowly focused on the time. He slept for almost 24 hours straight.

He thought with some detachment that he should get up and take a shower: it was rather unpleasant to lie in crumpled from sleep, sweat smelling office clothes, which he hadn’t bothered to take off before collapsing onto the bed. But he just rolled over, sprawling on his back, and stared at the ceiling.

 

The news about M’s demise left no one indifferent at MI6. And among the disarray and confusion it was easy for Q to hide his own shock over Silva’s death.

Although, he didn’t really have much to hide. He continued his work as if nothing had happened, repairing security breaches, giving the standard instructions regarding the completion of the operation, requesting reports... He didn’t feel anything, not a single emotion. Just the straining tension, which didn’t allow him to go home even after all the top priority issues have been settled.

Only when members of his branch have begun to return to work after a night's rest, and he was still sitting at his computer, he suddenly felt incredibly tired. His head was spinning, whole body seemed to be burning, and, referring to suspected flu symptoms, he quite easily got two days off.

 

Once upon a time, when Tiago was gone and it was clear that he was never coming back, Q - then still Matt - slept and slept, refusing to get out of bed and making his grandmother very anxious. But now there was no one left to worry about him. He could just sleep for another day, but the physical needs got him out of bed and into the bathroom eventually. Q stepped into the shower, leaving his clothes to lie on the floor in disarray instead of putting them into the laundry basket. He spent at least an hour just standing under the pouring water and looking at one and the same spot blankly. Gradually some thoughts began to form in the vacuum that was his mind. Or rather one thought.

_It’s my fault._

Yes, he was never really able to help Tiago; but _Silva_ could still be alive if only Q made his choice earlier. After all, he did choose Silva's side, but why did he waste so much time thinking? He could help him, make all his actions more effective... Bond would never have caught him... Q covered his head with his hands as if trying to defend himself from this invisible dead-weight settling upon him.

He tried to remind himself that Silva was insane, a murderer and a terrorist, tried to remember the excruciating guilt he felt after the explosion at MI6, his dead colleagues, and eventually, M. But all this didn’t matter anymore, everything faded compared to a simple but inconceivable fact: Silva is dead.

Instead, he should have thought about his own safety at the moment, to estimate whether someone – Bond, for example - might suspect him. But Q found out that it didn’t bother him at all; as if he ceased to exist the same moment that Silva died.

He came out of the shower, dried himself with a towel carelessly and wandered into the room, leaving wet trail on the floor. Perhaps it would be much easier if he was able to break down, to crouch into a ball on the floor and howl of pain and grief. But all he could feel was incredible, colorless void that devoured him alive and reduced him to nothingness.

He took out some jeans from the closet and pulled them on - mechanically, without thinking - when the loud ring of the doorbell caused him to wake up for his trance. He quickly put on some sweater, not noticing that it was turned inside out, and went into the hallway, while the doorbell rang impatiently for the second time. As soon as he opened the door, Bond burst into his apartment, slamming the door behind him.

“007. How can I be of service?” Q adjusted his glasses, looking calmly at the agent.

Bond gave him a gloomy look from head to toe.

“I didn’t expect to find you still here.”

“Where else can I be?” Q shrugged.

Bond unceremoniously invaded his personal space, stepping too close and forcing Q to take a small step back to the wall.

“Did you seriously hope that no one would notice?”

 _Oh_ , Q thought with the same indifference, _here we go_. He didn’t even bother to pretend not to understand what Bond was talking about.

“Are you here to take me to the HQ?” he simply asked, leaning against the wall.

That might have been not the reaction Bond expected, but his face was hard to read. Q saw only suspicion and threat. The agent looked at the Quartermaster’s unusually negligent clothes, peered into his gray face, slightly swollen from the long sleep.

“I just want to know what the fuck, Q? What is there to gain for a man in your position?”

Q smiled bitterly with one corner of his mouth.

“Silva didn’t pay me. And didn’t ask for any assistance.”

The agent smiled grimly.

“And here I was surprised, why you are not trying to prove my suspicions wrong.”

“I'm not trying to. Yes, I was Silva’s accomplice. It was my conscious choice, and I will be responsible for it.”

Bond’s face showed surprise. He narrowed his eyes, not for the first time going through all the facts and trivia details that allowed him to suspect his assistant. If it wasn’t for money, it could be, for instance, the challenge that appealed to Q; but Bond didn’t think he saw any indications of that in his behavior. He was good at reading people after all. Q shivered, crossed his arms over his chest, turning his face to the side.

“Did he force you to? You lied to me on the island, did you?”

Q shook his head, ashamed to raise his eyes from the floor, “I wasn’t lying. And he didn’t force me.”

Bond raised his chin slightly, eyes becoming even colder than ever.

“You knew him quite a while, did you?” he said slowly.

Q just nodded. The agent’s eyes suddenly opened a little wider and softened somehow.

“You knew him when he still was...” from the sudden realization Bond didn’t even finish the sentence.

“You are very discerning, 007,” Q looked at Bond wearily. “Yes, I knew him when he was still Tiago Rodriguez, a double-oh agent just like you are. And he... He was dear to me.”

Q’s voice faltered at the last words. His indifference suddenly cracked, when he said Tiago’s name out loud, the emotional anesthesia of shock started to melt on the edges. _God, not in front of Bond!_ And just like he wanted to be able to cry or to find some other way to let the pain out, now he was frantically trying to keep his calm facade.

The situation was rather different from how 007 perceived it on his way to Q’s apartment. The emotional background didn’t change the fact of treason, but Bond knew that for some reason – even though it could be called unprofessional - he couldn’t feel the same anger towards the Quartermaster. Perhaps it was the last echo of the doubts Silva managed to get into his heart; James did remain cool during the conversation between Silva and M at MI6, but no one knew which side he would choose, if he wasn’t defending M, but rather an abstract idea or institution.

Bond exhaled, rubbed his stubbled chin.

“Look, just tell us who owns the list now. There were enough deaths because of Silva already.”

“If only I knew,” Q shook his head. “I don’t know anything. I have never been informed about any of his plans, and I didn’t try to find out, didn’t try to stop him. Christ, it’s such a mess… I just hope that they come for me soon. I want all this to be over.”

The agent smirked angrily and ran a hand over his face again.

“They won’t believe you, you know. You better leave while you still can. Leave right now.”

Q looked at him in surprise.

“Why do you care what happens to me?”

The agent gave him an appraising look, as if asking himself the same question.

“You have very little time, Q. I didn’t share my suspicions with anyone yet, but they have eyes too.”

“Thank you, James,” Q called the agent by his name to his own surprise. “I think I'll stay here.”

It didn’t feel right to see Q like this: not a trace of the amused superiority, smug independence and confidence. But there was nothing Bond could do. He sighed heavily and stepped to the door, but stopped and turned his face back to Q.

“Think about it. As bad as you feel right now, there will be a way for MI6 to make things even worse.”

The now former Quartermaster smiled with one corner of his mouth.

“I doubt it. Good luck, 007.”

Bond shook his head disapprovingly, throwing a farewell glance at Q, and disappeared behind the door.

Q slowly slid down the wall, sat on the floor. He leaned his elbow on the bent knees, buried his face in the crook of his arm and tried to remember how he existed when Silva hadn’t yet appeared in his life. What did he live for? What did he hope for? And whatever came to his mind didn’t matter anymore.

He winced slightly when a few hours later the doorbell rang again.

 

† † † † †

 

For a contemporary person so accustomed to comfort (clean bed with a comfortable mattress, a hot shower, mobile Internet) that he doesn’t notice it, only the lack of these conveniences in confinement is already a shock. And yet he is often unable to readjust quickly enough and understand that his life will be very different now and it’s better to forget about concepts like civility and human rights.

The former Quartermaster was no exception. He certainly knew that his prospects were not so bright: a long-term prison sentence or, what was more likely, a quick trial and a lethal injection. But for some reason he didn’t doubt that he would be treated in a civilized manner, especially after doing his best at cooperation while being interrogated, telling them everything – well, except for some private details of his relationship with Silva.

He was wrong. He soon realized that they simply didn’t believe him: neither the fact that he assisted Silva mostly by just not standing in his way, without any benefit for himself, nor that he didn’t know who now had the list of agents. The list was the major problem, and the former Q - the last possible lead. Of course, no one wanted to believe that Silva’s accomplice really didn’t know anything about the whereabouts of the hard drive; so they needed to do something about his stubborn silence.

On the third day after another interrogation – each conversation already started to remind him The Groundhog Day - he was taken not to his cell with a bunk against the wall, but into a tiny brightly lit room. He sat there, fixed to a chair that was the cell’s only feature quite puzzled for some time until he realized: he had been deprived of sleep. First he wasn’t able to sleep because of the blinding halogen light and the sitting position on a hard chair, but gradually fatigue began to take its toll, and his eyes closed on their own. Loud, high-pitched sounds came immediately from the speakers on the ceiling - they didn’t stop, just faded in and out like some sort of alarm. He couldn’t even press his hands to his ears, because his wrists were strapped to the chair. After four hours of continuous noise it seemed that the sounds were already coming from the very center of his own brain, the headache was driving him mad. But that was only the beginning.

After what seemed like eternity - apparently, in the morning - the cell door opened, a guard stepped in and removed the straps. Matt rose on unsteady legs, unable to open his swollen eyes completely, and followed the guard to another interrogation.

 _I don’t know_ , he kept saying, _I really don’t know_.

 _Think again, Ryan_ , was the reply. Ironically, having lost everything, he got his name back.

Then he was placed back into the cell with the inhuman light. They stopped feeding him too, but he couldn’t think of food anyway. On the third day his only desire was to sleep, to have at least five minutes of sleep. Even unbearable sounds ceased to disturb him, and every now and again a guard had to open the door and slap him or pour cold water on his head.

On the fourth day he almost didn’t realize what was happening anymore, opening his eyes required a huge effort. His neck no longer held his head, it was constantly dropping, the chin touching the chest. It became hard to think the simplest thoughts or to distinguish people from each other. _I don’t know_ , he kept muttering to a guard when he shook him. _I don’t know_ , he spoke hoarsely to yet another faceless person during interrogation.

On the fifth day they let him sleep for an hour then woke up again; and it felt even worse. An interrogation was followed by a painful vein injection - judging by the fact that his consciousness unexpectedly cleared up, he was given one of those adrenaline cocktails that MI6 chemists developed for squeezing all physical resources from an agent.

When he was led back to his cell, a man popped out of an intersecting corridor, hurrying somewhere. Matt recognized him: it was O'Donnell from the Transport Department; his wife, Karen O'Donnell, worked in Q Branch and died during the explosion. O'Donnell noticed Mathew too; the folder that he was carrying fell out of his hands, his face contorted.

“Scum,” he croaked, “fucking traitor! You killed her, you fucking killed my wife!”

He rushed over to him; and the guards, rather than to intervene, simply stepped aside, allowing him to punch former Q right in the face. From the strong blow he fell to the floor, and O'Donnell, who clearly wasn’t sent to this particular sector at this exact time by accident, started to beat him violently, shouting something. _I'm sorry_ , Matt thought, closing his eyes, not able to turn away from the blows, just writhing with pain when the shoe hit him in the stomach, then in the ribs. When the guards decided that it was enough and finally dragged O'Donnell away from the prisoner, he wasn’t able to stand up on his own. He was pulled up by the guards, but after one step he finally lost consciousness from pain and exhaustion.

 

† † † † †

 

From outside the cell came a loud, rhythmic sound of dripping water. This sound resonated in his ears, throbbed in his head with constant migraine, driving him insane. Must be a hallucination, which happen often to people in solitary confinement... Hallucinations, already? Although Matthew wasn’t sure how much time has passed. The whole body still ached as much as when he first came to consciousness after the ‘accidental’ meeting with O'Donnell. No more than a few days then.

Frequent interrogations suddenly stopped, he wasn’t questioned for - what, two days? He couldn’t tell for sure. The idea that they seemed to finally give up on hope to get information from him and all this would be over soon was almost comforting. The pain was uneven, sometimes intensifying to unbearable. At such times he usually lost consciousness slowly slipping into oblivion. There must have been someone visiting the cell to check his condition, do injections, because when he came back to consciousness, the pain always subsided a little.

And as crazy as it may sound, it was easier to suffer physical pain than the incredible anguish and crippling guilt - oddly, not for treason, and even no longer for the death of his former colleagues, but only, exclusively, for Silva’s death.

 

When the guards brought him ordinary clothing instead of the standard prison uniform and told him to put it on, it took some time for him to realize what they wanted from him. He even received back his glasses. He wasn’t able to change without help though, as well as he couldn’t walk on his own along the dimly lit corridors of MI6 prison section.

Where do they lead him? A transfer to a more official detention facility? He tried to ask the guards but didn’t receive an answer, though there should have been no point in hiding that from him. He was put in a backseat of a van, a guard on either side of him, one more in the front seat; the view was obstructed and Matt couldn’t focus enough to understand where they were going. Finally they stopped, and the man sitting next to the driver got out. He returned in a minute to the car and barked, “Get him out.”

The daylight stung his eyes. He blinked several times in a row till he could spot a black Prado nearby and two men in dark glasses standing next to it. The slight shove at his back made him wince with pain.

“Go.”

Exchange, he realized with amazement. But who is he exchanged for? And most importantly, who the hell needs him? He stumbled and practically fell into the hands of one of the men, groaned in pain as he was dragged into the car.

The Prado started off immediately. The driver was informing someone about the successful exchange, his mate, who sat on the backseat next to Matthew, buckled his seat belt without answering Matt’s question “Where are we going?”; and the former Quartermaster didn’t ask any more. Sitting was hard, the pain was sickening, and Matt periodically sank into empty black void. Surfacing out of it, he immediately began to panic, to try to figure out what was going on, who were these people and where he was being taken; but he couldn’t focus for longer than half a minute.

They drove into something that looked like a warehouse - a garage? – and changed the car. Matt found himself lying, and only then he noticed that he now was in an ambulance vehicle, and the men in dark glasses were replaced by other two, not including the driver. One of them was apparently a doctor, even though he was not wearing a uniform: he began to examine Matthew, immediately reporting through a wireless intercom about broken arm, possibility of rib fractures, numerous bruisings and hematomas. After injection of an anesthetic Matt began to fall into unconsciousness again, feeling vaguely the touches of applying bandages.

He woke up already sitting in another car. Surprised that the journey was taking so long, he stared at the people who accompanied him – they were in the police uniform now. He didn’t feel any pain, but his head was still dizzy, thoughts incredibly sluggish and impeded; after some time he recognized the doctor from the ambulance in one of the cops – because of a scar across his cheek. Before he dozed off again, he had time to think that whoever needed him, must be a big shot - since he had people from different government agencies working for him (or disguised for them so successfully).

This time, he even saw dreams - mostly incoherent, except for one, where he ran along an endless street among some industrial landscape chasing a man, who was walking ahead. Matt was somehow convinced that it was Tiago, though in the dream he remembered Tiago was dead, and even the silhouette of the man didn’t look like him at all. But still he ran, slipping on the morning ice, until he fell to the pavement. And woke up.

Out of the half-open car window – it was a different car again, something like a small van - came cold, moist and wonderfully fresh air, as if they were far away from big cities. He tried to sit up a bit, to look in the window: only dense green of pine forest was flashing by, but Matt realized that they were on the mainland – it was a right-hand traffic road. Painkillers dulled not only pain, but also fear; nevertheless he suddenly felt some suffocating panic, akin to claustrophobia.

“Stop the car! I need to get out!”

Matthew was not even surprised that they quickly stopped on the side of the road at his request. He opened the door, jumped out, took a few wobbly steps, gasping for breath. He felt nauseous; all this was too much for him, he didn’t even know if it was for real, or if he finally lost his mind and was just hallucinating.

He doubled over, his hands on his knees, passingly noticing that his clothes seem to be different - they must have got rid of the previous clothes because of MI6 trackers. His convoy got out of the car too, the doctor took a step towards him, but Matt straightened up sharply, almost losing his balance, and raising one hand in a stopping gesture, warned him nervously, “Don’t come near me!”

“It’s all right,” gently, with an indefinable accent, said the doctor, approaching him.

Matt stepped back, swaying; in the doctor’s hand flashed something. Mathew’s reactions were too slow and he had no strength to fight back: arms tightly wrapped around him, he felt a painful injection in the neck and fell into an already too familiar darkness.

 

The first thing he felt when he started to wake up was terrible dryness in his throat. He tried to lick his lips and coughed – something cool touched his lips, apparently, an edge of a cup; water began to flow into his throat. He took a couple of gulps, and the cup disappeared. He exhaled heavily, exhausted with this minor effort, falling back into half sleep. When he managed to open his eyes, there was no one next to him; he lay on a bed in a sun-drenched room. He blinked several times, looked at the blurry shapes of dark antique furniture, swaying curtains on the open window, a vase of fresh flowers on the dresser. He shifted slightly and noticed that his left arm was in a cast, and a thin catheter stretched to the right one from an IV standing by the bed. On the nightstand beside were settled some medical devices, and an open netbook had been left on a nearby chair.

Because of all the blackouts Matt lost any track of time; it seemed to him that all this was happening for a month, or maybe a year; but his consciousness began to clear up, and anxiety returned. Someone was talking indistinctly behind the door. With a poorly coordinated movement of the hand in cast he peeled off the patch that fixed the needle, pulled out the catheter and slowly sat up. He felt really weak, his head was spinning. It would have been wiser to stay in bed, but the anxiety caused him to get up and slowly walk to the door, stepping carefully on the old wooden floor with unstable bare feet. He silently opened the door, got out into the dimly lit corridor and just a few steps away saw a figure, standing with his back to him.

Something in this dark-haired man’s posture seemed vaguely familiar to Matt. The man, who was holding a phone to his ear, suddenly spoke up; Matt felt his knees give in and frantically grabbed at the wall. It was Silva’s voice. Now there was no doubt: it all was a hallucination.

The man hung up, turned around and froze. Tiago was standing in front of Matt.

“Matthew...” he quickly came to his senses, stepped to Matt, grabbing his arm gently, because he looked like he was about to faint.

This man really was Tiago, not Silva: dark hair, no sign of the weird bleached eyebrows. Naturally, Matt’s disfigured mind gave him the image of the man he missed.

“Tiago,” Matt smiled weakly, looking at the man and at the same time as if through him, like at a ghost. “How good to see you again.”

“You need to lie down,” Tiago cautiously led him back to the room, not showing any surprise at his strange reaction.

Matt complied, but at the bed he turned around suddenly, clutching the man who guided him on the shoulder, “Why do I see you? Am I crazy?”

“Fortunately not,” Tiago smirked, guiding Matt to sit on the bed and staying close to him. “I'm real, Matthew.”

In the well-lit room it was obvious that his hair was jet-black - not that brownish-black color that Rodriguez had in the 1997 - clearly dyed; and recent signs of grazes and scratches haven’t yet disappeared from his face.

“But you... I saw the report... killed by a knife in the back,” Matt could hardly believe his eyes, and yet it was much less like a hallucination. Again he reached out and touched his skin with trembling fingers, “You are alive, oh God, you are alive. How did you survive?”

“ _Pfff_ , some ridiculous knife through the bullet-proof vest!” he rolled his eyes. “I’m not so easy to kill, have you not noticed yet?”

He smirked but then became serious again, anxiously looking at Matt.

“Good…” Matt forced out a confused smile, not taking his eyes off the man. “But… why did you risk contacting MI6? Why all this scam with the exchange?”

Tiago’s eyes widened in surprise, he laughed harshly.

“Now I'm not so sure you're not crazy! Teo, did you think that I will do to you the same that _she_ had done to me?”

“No. Apparently, I thought you were dead,” Matt looked down at the floor, blinking rapidly. Then he looked up at Rodriguez, still confused. “But now I really don’t understand... And what did you trade me for?”

“The list,” Tiago sat on a chair beside the bed, leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “I offered them exchange - not on my behalf, of course; as far as they know, my dead body, burned beyond recognition, was brought back to MI6 for examination... They sure had to have doubts, what if they harm themselves, letting you collaborate with their enemies. And whether I’ve made a copy of the hard drive when I hacked it. So I let them intercept fake information from which they were convinced quite easily that only I had access to the list and that the skills of my accomplices are not enough to hack my encryption. So they needed you. And then they were supposedly hoping to steal back the list after they got you.”

“But now MI6 is likely to believe that they won’t let that happen for the second time,” quietly continued the former Q, nodding. “Fairly ingenious, as everything you design. But I still don’t see where I fit into all this,” he fixed his gaze on Tiago. “What’s my role at this time?”

Tiago sighed, took Matthew's hand into his.

“I was wrong,” he said reluctantly, without looking up. “Although we can’t say that I got you involved in all this, no, you just got caught between two fires. But I am to blame, I need you to forgive me.”

“No,” quietly but firmly said Matt. “You didn’t force me to do anything, although you could have. You didn’t even ask. All the decisions I made myself, I don’t blame you. I only blamed myself. Including the fact that choosing your side I couldn’t help you as I should have. It tortured me the most when I thought you were dead.”

Tiago looked up at him, then gently pressed Matt’s hand to his lips.

Matt just froze, closing his eyes. He wanted to cling to him, to bury his face in his neck and stop asking questions. But no, at least now they had to speak openly, leaving nothing unsaid. He briefly shook his head, forcing himself to say, “You don’t need me anymore, Tiago.”

Rodriguez shook his head and looked down.

“You read Bond’s report, yes? From this report no one knows that I had plenty of time to kill M in that chapel before James was there. But when I was so close to my goal, so close... I realized that I still didn’t feel anything. That nothing would change. And there was no point in continuing to live. I placed the gun in M’s hand and asked to shoot us both with the same bullet. I wanted it so badly, I really wanted her to pull the trigger...”

Matt bit his lip. His chest felt heavy from these words, as when he saw Tiago drop to his knees searching for something in M’s face.

“According to the report, Bond’s knife stopped that from happening.”

“Yes,” Tiago looked up. “So if you did help me ‘as you should have’, as you say, and Bond didn’t interrupt us, I wouldn’t be sitting here right now. And you too, by the way, would be already dead.”

“You're right,” Matt’s pale fingers with sad care ran through dyed hair. “It was never worth your life. But now - you're done with MI6? Tell me what you are, Tiago.”

“Done?” he narrowed his eyes thoughtfully, as if asking this question himself.

“I don’t regret what I did. But in the chapel I was right, nothing has changed. When I asked myself why I survived the cyanide, what was there to live for - I decided then that the reason was M. When my men brought me back from Skyfall, I asked myself the same question again. And you know what I realized?” he gently put his hand to Matt’s cheek, stroked the skin with his fingers. “...That this time the reason is you. I’ll be done when you're safe.”

Matt lowered his lashes, involuntarily pressing his cheek against his hand, although it all sounded perhaps too good to be true. His brain seemed to be softened by stress, pain, and barbiturates, it took a lot of effort to think logically or even just think. Besides, he was too happy to see Tiago alive, and nothing could outshine this joy right now. He really wanted to simply trust. But it was still hard, and once again he forced himself to repeat his question.

“You took a huge risk to rescue me. What do you want me to do for you?”

“Come with me to Mexico,” Tiago suddenly smiled, his eyes sparkling merrily.

Matt chuckled, which caused a sharp pain in his ribs, shook his head, “Sure, why not. But first, tell me what you need from me there. We don’t have to play anymore.”

“MI6 is already looking for you, you know far too much that they just let you go, and staying in Europe is unsafe. After a few days the passport will be ready, I hope you will feel better by then. With the new documents you can easily find a job in Mexico, and by the way, I moved some of your bank accounts before MI6 closed them. So there we can part ways, and I’ll finally disappear from your life.”

Tiago wanted to add something else, but just looked down thoughtfully, taking Mathew’s hand again.

Matt leaned forward.

“I don’t want you to disappear. I’m sorry, I just can’t get used to the idea that you're doing this for _me_ , not for the sake of some new goal... But on the other hand,” Matt leaned his forehead against Tiago’s, “what the hell does it matter if you're alive and I can be near you...”

Tiago lifted Matt’s chin with his fingertips, looking into his eyes, and long-forgotten warmth lit his face. He quickly pressed his lips to Mathew’s in a kiss, hand reaching in such a familiar manner into his dark curls.

Matt grabbed at his shirt, kissing him desperately and only hoping that he wouldn’t wake up the next moment from the shout of a security guard.

“I have nothing but you,” he gasped when they broke away from each other, vaguely realizing that he would hardly say anything like that in his normal state of mind. “There was never anything but you.”

He didn’t care how ridiculous or perhaps pathetic he sounded - he really believed his own words at the moment. That excruciating loneliness that came over him after Silva’s death, only worsened by the solitary confinement, was like an awful black hole in his memory, and Matt’s fingers clenched the shirt fabric in a fist. Tiago soothingly stroked his hair, raised his hand to his lips again, kissing the slender fingers delicately, as if touching something sacred.

“You're just tired. You need to sleep,” Tiago got up from his chair, gently put his arm around Matt’s shoulders, guiding him to lie down. Matt didn’t resist; though he couldn’t help wincing when his whole body responded with muted pain. But as soon as he found himself in the horizontal position, in a fit of sudden panic he gripped Tiago’s hand.

“Don’t go away, please. I think if I close my eyes... when I wake up, all this would be just a dream.”

“I'm not going anywhere,” Tiago smiled reassuringly, looked at Matthew’s troubled face and lay down next to him on top of the blanket. “Is this better?”

“Yes,” Matt found his hand, laced their fingers and hid his face in Tiago’s shoulder. “It’s good now... Where are we?”

“23 kilometers from Gänsbrunnen, Switzerland. Does it matter?”

Matt threw back his head to look at Tiago, as if for the first time noticing wrinkles and lines on his face: he looked like a weary actor who finally washed the makeup off.

“Not at all,” he answered.

A lot of things suddenly became unimportant, but it didn’t bring the feeling of emptiness, like before, only forgotten calm, a deep sense of peace and warmth. It didn’t matter that there were many difficulties ahead, the flight, airport security, agents, foreign country, unfamiliar language... Didn’t matter that he was now on the other side of the law next to a man he knew so well, but at the same time, about whom he always knew next to nothing.

 

A gush of fresh cool air came through the half-open window; the curtains swayed, and on Matt’s face fell and immediately disappeared warm spots of sunlight. Tiago embraced him, and Matthew closed his eyes against his shoulder, feeling like he was finally home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed reading this!  
> AND GIVE ME YOUR COMMENTS NOW :D


	10. Extra 1: Azul

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An epilogue.
> 
> Thank you for reading and leaving kudos! <3

Thick plate of blue paint stuck painfully under the nail. He pulled it out with his teeth and continued scratching off paint from the side of someone's old boat. The boat was lying on the shore, staring into the evening sky with its too proud for such a tiny thing name ‘Ballena Azul’ – The Blue Whale. The spot of scratched off paint resembled the island of Great Britain.

Matt shook off small chips of blue that stuck to his fingers. He took a drag from his cigarette, closing his eyes and feeling the sweetish smoke being absorbed into the tissue, the blood, hacking the encryption of his nervous system and rewriting the codes of his brain to the full and mindless relaxation.

Tiago tried to prevent him from smoking marijuana; so Matt smoked here, on the shore of Lago de Pátzcuaro – “a lake so blue that it merges with the sky”. That was written in the tourist guide that Matt had bought at the airport. The lake water was a bit brownish though, and marijuana could bring far less damage than Tiago’s tequila. Now he wasn’t seen with the bottle too often, but only a couple of months ago Tiago regularly mixed alcohol and his pain medication, shot at the walls, fought in bars. In sober state he suffered from migraines, shot at people and spat blood dramatically because of the new prosthesis that was rubbing against the soft tissues (The old one he left to ‘his’ burnt corpse). In a few words, he was just as insufferable as Matthew had imagined.

 

_“Tiago, I’m not eating at the same table with this fucking thing,” Matt said mostly because of principle, looking almost indifferently at the fat colorful iguana that Tiago placed on their dining table from the floor._

_Matthew hated reptiles; Tiago, on the contrary, was rather fond of them. For example, it took much effort to get the Komodo dragons that Matt was familiar with for his casino in Macau. The iguana moved it’s short legs with long claws, clumsily trying to pick up a piece of watermelon from a plate with its huge mouth and thick pink tongue._

_“Don’t listen to him,_ mi cariño _,” said Tiago affectionately, moving the sliding piece of fruit closer to the iguana._

 _“You call it the same as me,_ cabrón _,” continued to resent Matt, annoyed by the midday heat, which was bearable only while sitting in the swimming pool._

_Tiago laughed at Mathew cursing in Spanish, and iguana shook its head like a crocodile and dropped the slavered piece from its mouth ridiculously, a string of saliva hanging down its chin._

_“I'm going to be sick!” Matt threw his fork on the dark oak table top and moved away on his chair. Tiago, with a smile even broader than before, carefully put the iguana back on the floor, placing a kiss on its lumpy forehead._

_“Just try to come near me after that,” Matthew warned him grimly._

_He had an urge to seize the iguana’s long tail strongly - the adult species won’t grow back the cast-off tail. But it would be too nasty. Tiago jumped up from his chair, walked round the table in a few big steps._

_“Get away from me,” Matt began to shrug off his embrace, though no longer able to keep the smile from appearing in the corners of his mouth. “I suppose it’s true then, that owners look like their pets: you're just as disgusting!”_

_Tiago poked out his tongue merrily and, in the manner of an iguana, slowly leaned over to Matt and then quickly licked under his ear, laughing into tanned neck._

 

Matthew smiled, made the last drag and tossed his cigarette into the water. Windows started to light up on Janitzio – the island sticking out of the water in front of him like a large ant hill. Tiago said that the island's name meant ‘Where it rains’. The rains would begin in May; and so far there was only cold at night. Matt shivered and rose to his feet. The 40-meter statue at the top of the island, as usually in the evenings, was threatening the sky with its fist.

He went up the hill; the windows of their house shone with warm light.

In the twilight the house looked not so awful. Sure, it wasn’t _el troje_ \- a traditional wooden house of P'urhépecha, like in the garden of Folk Art Museum: the villa was new, but it was too skillfully disguised as the surrounding adobe buildings.

 

_“It’s a god-forsaken place, Tiago! The most luxurious private houses in modern architecture are built in Mexico; and I have to step out in the street and feel like I'm on the set of some fucking Zorro back in the 50s!”_

_“Well aren’t you picky! In Guadalajara you didn’t like the 31th floor, here you don’t like anything at all...” Tiago finally raised his eyes from the laptop._

_“…Guadalajara was not bad.”_

_“Guadalajara was not bad! And who always complained that I send a bodyguard with him everywhere, mmm?”_

_“There was where to go out at least.”_

_“You know perfectly that we are here temporarily. So, if you stop your whining...”_

_“Ha, you don’t like my whining? It’s not the worst way to deal with stress, you know! Who was so drunk yesterday that he almost shot some Russian tourists? And who had to deal with the police afterwards?”_

_“I wasn’t drunk, we were just playing Russian roulette. It’s a national game!” Tiago shrugged nonchalantly._

_“With you I'll soon become a professional briber or something!”_

_Matt rubbed his temples and shook his head. It was just too hot._

 

The murmur of the TV comes from the open windows. Here it is so quiet at nights that you can hear the wind blowing down the lanes. Tiago is sitting in the living room, but Matt knows that he is not looking at the screen.

There is a bottle on the coffee table, not yet open. Matt comes in, walks into the room and turns off the TV.

Tiago looks at him with discontent, but says nothing. _‘Smoked mota again?’_

Matthew answers without words, too. _‘And you, are you drinking again?’_

Tiago purses his lips angrily, but his glance becomes guilty for a second, and Matt steps closer, climbs into his lap, face to face. Tiago looks intently into his eyes, and Matthew finally smiles encouragingly. Now he distinguishes all his emotions by touch alone. And when Tiago kisses him with gratitude, Matt thinks that for this he is ready to live even in _el troje_ with a dozen slobbery iguanas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is the deal: if you want us to write another extra to this story, you just need to specify what would you like to read about - and we'll probably write it!  
> It can be after the end of the story, or a flashback, or just any point in the timeline of the plot :3


	11. Extra 2: Verde

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flashback after Skyfall, Silva's POV.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, it took me ages to finally translate it, probably no one is already interested, so sorry!... still, here is the extra AnnaCanWait, mpoumpouka and tsuuu asked about! <3

Raoul woke up in a private hospital in Scotland with his disaster of a face without the prosthesis. In drug-induced haze he thought for a moment that he was still in China, and the fourteen years of recovery and careful planning, Skyfall and M’s death – all that was just a dream. And he did not know if he felt disappointed or relieved.  
  
 _He closes his eyes and focuses on the sensation of pain until it seems completely detached from his body, becoming something separate, like a monotonous melody, sounding inside his mind._  
  
He could still remember waking up after every reconstruction surgery, he remembered every small success of the rehabilitation program, the day when he noticed that he can finally move without pain. And now, wincing with every breath of blunt pain somewhere below the left shoulder blade, he closed his eyes and went back to just breathing, concentrating on the feeling of his own body, mentally penetrating every aching muscle, gathering himself bit by bit into one whole again. But just like fourteen years ago, some pieces of the puzzle were missing.  
  
He smiled sadly. Did he really hope that M’s death will return to him these missing parts? No death can rectify anything, only cause more disintegration: he confronted death too often not to know that simple truth.  
  
He rubbed his face, sitting on a hospital bed, flipped back a strand of black hair that still seemed so alien. His boots were too heavy on his feet, clothes seemed to cling to his body annoyingly. He was interrupting the required bed rest much too early, but he couldn’t stay in Scotland any more. His people were already following the instructions issued before Skyfall; Silva was right to make them in advance, suggesting that when it was over, he would be too careless about his further destiny to do anything.  
  
There was a merely formal knock on the door, and in popped the massive figure of Pavel.  
  
“Mr Silva, the car waits outside,” he announced and obligingly opened the door wider.  
  
“Rodriguez,” muttered Raoul, staring blindly into space before him.  
  
This name - Silva - now sounded strange and unfamiliar, as if he really died, and was born yet again; nothing, not even a name, could be brought with him back from the other side. His old former name was alien for too long as well, but until he came up with anything else it was still better than "Silva".  
  
Pavel looked around with uncertainty, shifted from foot to foot. It was amazing how bewildered the face of this huge bloke has become just from one single word spoken by Silva.  
  
“Excuse me?”  
  
“My name is Tiago Rodriguez,” quietly said Tiago in a flat voice.  
  
Pavel nodded hesitantly. It was the worst, when Silva looked like this: disgruntled deity, sad genius, infinitely tired from the ordinary people that surrounded him and could do nothing without his explanation. It wasn’t even offensive - it was scary. Far worse than when he shouted and cursed, or spoke in a sweet calm tone mocking care and affection. There was even no irritation in this fatigue, there was nothing except for fatigue. But it was so overwhelming that it seemed like he was going to slowly raise his hand and shoot his subordinates - just to free himself from explaining anything or listening to them; just to stay in silence for a while.  
  
Tiago finally rose to his feet and glanced at Pavel indifferently, coming out of the room.  
  
Some people were working for Silva because of money, some out of fear and as a result of blackmail. But the real base to all his plans and designs were those, whose loyalty he didn’t question. He earned this loyalty in different ways, beginning to look for these people while still working at MI6, devoting to that matter a lot of attention and money. He was looking for those who needed to be saved – in any sense of the word – and who were able to be grateful for it. Those, who have lost the meaning of life, but could regain it in almost religious dedication, in loyal service (with the help of a clever psychological impact, of course). Sometimes Raoul smirked, thinking that he could easily found his own sect. By the way, Bond was an ideal candidate too – Silva immediately noticed it – but, unfortunately, James had already found himself another "sect", which he was also so blindly loyal to.  
  
Only one Silva’s assistant did not fit under any of these categories. The thought of him hovered somewhere in the depths of his brain – unconsciously, just like the small repeated movements of his tongue, constantly probing the smooth edge of the new prosthesis. And only now, watching the pale Scottish landscapes sweep by behind the car window, Tiago released this thought up to the surface.  
 _Matthew._  
  
After all, he became the key part of Raoul’s final operation by running the cyber-terrorist’s program in MI6’s network. Silva has long since stopped counting on Q’s help, he had other steps prepared; but suddenly he found himself writing this cracking program after talking to Matt on his island. When the glass door of his cell opened, Silva didn’t have time to be surprised nor to reflect on Q’s decision.  
And only now Tiago fully realized what had actually happened.  
  
He quickly turned his laptop on and began typing furiously, loudly cursing at the satellite internet, which worked too slowly. By the time they left Scotland, Tiago was already inside MI6, gathering all information he could find about Q, who was no longer listed as an employee of Secret Intelligence Service – which fact, by the way, had already a considerable impact on the vulnerability of MI6’s firewall.  
  
After arriving to Switzerland, Rodriguez instantly began an operation he called Hijo Pródigo*, completely ignoring his unrestored health, sitting for days in front of computer screens – one of which he broke in a flash of fury when his people reported about Matthew’s state from the ambulance vehicle. But his anger, however, was mingled with another feeling, an emotion he almost felt ashamed for: a poisonous feeling of pleasure. It’s nature wasn’t quite sadistic though, it was a sense of satisfaction from an opportunity of being a savior, a god even, for a short period of time; selfish delight of being needed. It also was the triumph of his self-righteousness – he was right, the system showed it’s cruel inhumane face again, exactly the way Silva had described. He tried to strangle this feeling but the fruitless attempt only angered him more. His anger fell not only on MI6 now, but also, quite unexpectedly, on Matthew. The same way a parent can yell at his child who suddenly got hurt – just because the parent was more frightened than the kid himself – the same way Tiago was angry at Matt, who clung to his ideals, who _allowed_ himself to be left without protection, _allowed_ himself to get hurt. Tiago let this anger hide the fact that there is only one man to blame; and that man is not Matt. The anger helped him to ignore some other feeling, too; long forgotten and intimidating, a feeling that could make him vulnerable.  
  
So when Rodriguez was waiting on the doorstep for the approaching car, only mild anxiety overlapped his irritation and patronizing triumph. But when he saw pale, worn out _Teo_ lying in barbiturate-induced sleep in the back seat, Tiago’s eyes opened. He felt his insides twist into a burning knot, a leaden mixture of fear, tenderness, and finally – guilt. With something akin to reverence, he gently swoop Matthew up into his arms and for the first time he felt responsible for Matt’s nearly broken life.  
  
Matthew never seemed weak; the inevitable human weaknesses he was always hiding behind a mask of indifference, disdain and professionalism. And Silva – who knew perhaps too well about hiding your real self behind a mask – still allowed himself to be deceived by it. Because, every time he noticed that in spite of the cold and stable facade his "opponent" is actually made of flesh and blood, and that he, Silva, can seriously injure him, this truth stripped Raoul of his fervor and confidence, and the game stopped immediately. But now, seeing the result of this game and admitting his guilt to himself, he gathered the courage to take an even more difficult step – to plead guilty before Teo.

 

 

† † † † †

  
* Hijo Pródigo – (Spanish) The Prodigal Son.


	12. Extra 3 - The final one!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> it took me sooooo long to write this, I'm so sorry! (but I hope still someone will enjoy it :3)

When, after several weeks of unstopping work, Tiago suddenly announced that they certainly needed to make poc-chuc*, Matthew (who worked just exactly the same amount of time Rodriguez did) decided that had to be some new program. To his surprise, Tiago shut the laptop’s lid and called the driver, informing him about the upcoming visit to Zocalo area.

Matthew and Tiago moved to Mexico City two months ago, but Matt hadn’t seen anything yet except for the neighborhood of their hotel – "their" in the full sense of the word: the hotel was owned by Rodriguez (more precisely, by Silva) for almost ten years already. Tiago, as usual, was very reluctant to let Matthew wander around the city alone, but here (in contrast to Guadalajara) Matthew didn’t actually protest: after quiet suburban backstreets of Michoacán this city, the size of London but twice as noisy and bustling with people, seemed even a little _too_ big and chaotic.

Most of his days Matt spent at his computer, helping Tiago with his "work", which Rodriquez returned to after a few months of clearly harmful (for him as well as for everyone near) stagnation and inactivity accompanied with migraines and hard drinking. The nature of Tiago's work was often very questionable; in general, he offered excuses in the spirit of a Belizean saying "When a thief steals from a thief, God smiles." To tell the truth, Rodriguez liked the role of God much more than the role of a thief. He preferred to provoke members of triads, cartels, mafia and other similar doubtful-interests-clubs members to scam and kill each other – rather than confronting anyone himself. Matthew had to settle for the fact that at least they were not harming anyone "unjustly"; although he didn’t worry much about his morals: in any case, Tiago’s workaholism suited him much more than alcoholism or something worse.

Leaving the car somewhere near Zocalo, the main square of the historic center of Mexico City, Tiago and Matt walked along the perpendicular grid of streets to find themselves at an entrance to Abelardo L. Rodriguez Market.  Driving to the other end of city to buy food wasn’t necessary of course; but this place was worth the time spent on the D.F.* roads, busy with chaotic traffic. Built in 1930-s and named after the president who ordered the construction, the market combined national features with an enthusiastic mixture of baroque, art nouveau and art déco. It’s interiors were some sort of Sistine Chapel of workers and peasants: its walls were decorated with colorful murals done by the students of Diego Rivera. Despite this, there were almost no tourists and relatively few locals.

Tiago passed through the archway of the entrance, and then turned to the stairs leading up to the second floor. Matthew followed him, looking at the broad back of his beige jacket, jet-black hair (Rodriguez continued to dye it, hiding the gray, which started to appear long ago) and his familiar posture, the corner of his smile when Tiago would turn back to see if Matt still followed him.

Whole morning Tiago was silent and thoughtful. Usually this meant that he was thinking about some business or was engaged in creation of new codes (which ever continued in his mind, even when a laptop wasn’t available). But now his eyes were not absent with inner calculations. He stared at Matt attentively now and then, quickly looking away, when Matthew was replying with an inquiring look.

On the second floor there was an entrance to a relatively small auditorium.

“Teatro del Pueblo,” declared Rodriguez and Matt stepped into the aisle between rows of seats.  
The hall, lit only by sunlight that poured from the doorway, looked like a church during day hours: the same echoing silence, emptiness and expectation of all those people that would come and fill the empty seats that smelled of dust and old varnished wood. This unexpectedly familiar smell suddenly gave life to memories, which seemed to become faded, half-forgotten dreams under the bright Mexico sun, among the rampage of colors. This was the smell of the old movie theater in Leeds, so unimaginably distant now.

Smells are the fastest means to revive memories; but here, on this foreign continent, it was so hard to meet a familiar one.

When Matt stepped out of the plane that landed on the Mexican land – not yet fully recovered and barely alive after a 12 hour flight – he immersed into a variety of strong, unfamiliar odors, which he at first could not describe, couldn’t even understand whether they were pleasant or repulsive: there were no words for them in the languages known to him.

Familiar smells were now found in places like a laundry or a supermarket: some fabric softener, shampoo or chewing gum could far more likely smell of something familiar and dear than anything else among the alien nature and strange cities.

There was one time for example, when Matt noticeably surprised Rodriguez by walking to a supermarket cash register with a whole bunch of prayer candles in glass jars with the image of Virgin of Guadalupe. "Is there something important I don’t know about you?" Tiago asked with amusement, and Matthew just smiled in response. After all, there was something funny about the fact that this symbolic offering to the most popular Mexican saint smelled like Dries van Noten boutique on Oxford Street.

Despite his occasional nostalgia, the climate that was hard to get used to and all the difficulties of a relationship with such a man as Rodriguez, Matthew had never wanted to leave it all for good. So the suddenly uttered the question "Why are you still here?" caught him off guard. He turned around in surprise, staring at Tiago, absently ran his hand over the back of a wooden chair. Tiago stood still, a dark silhouette in the doorway cutting the flow of light in half.

"So that’s what you were thinking about today, is it not?" Matt finally asked him in return. Rodriguez pursed his lips in an irritated manner and looked away. He could easily talk about very personal things – but it's always been a monologue, where Tiago was just a storyteller. And to engage in a dialogue, in a discussion of relationships and feelings, where it was impossible to hide behind the detachment of an actor, was impossibly hard for him. So Matthew knew that Tiago had to be really concerned about this issue, if he managed to bring it up.

"Where else would I be?" he asked simply, turning back, taking careful step after step, as if trying not to scare off a wild animal.

Tiago audibly sighed, rolling his eyes – he was already angry with himself for having started this conversation. His face showed that he was ready to name dozens of places where Matthew could be having a great time at the moment. He could remind Matt about his unique skills, the ability to grasp new things quickly – for example, his Spanish was almost perfect already – and the hundreds of possibilities and perspectives, that didn’t include spending his time in this godforsaken country with an old, sick and mentally unstable egomaniac. Matthew has heard it all – whether spoken directly, or only mentioned in the unconscious hints.

"Okay, we better just go," Rodriguez said, ending the conversation like a coward. He made a step out of the door, but Matt grabbed him by the arm, pulling back.

He looked at Tiago, and once again marveled at how easily this man turned from familiar and _tame_ into someone distant and alien, completely unreachable. Matt clung to him, feeling the urgent need to turn this stranger back into someone he used to know so well, to _own_ him again.

The smell of Tiago’s skin was the only one that really mattered, the one that merged Matt’s old world with the new one. Matt pressed his whole body into Tiago, getting his hands under the man’s jacket, nuzzling against his neck. Tiago remained motionless and distant, as if he was not someone out of the material world, but just a reflection on cold mirror surface; Matt dug his fingers desperately into his clothes, his flesh – and after a few seconds that lasted a lifetime he felt a hot kiss on his neck.

Matthew often found it difficult to express his feelings with words, too; fortunately, sometimes the words were not really needed.

Matt suddenly felt like he became unable to break away from Tiago; with a huge effort he pulled away just a bit to murmur into his ear: "Let's go home." His voice sounded desperate, fervent, even dirty - but he didn’t care: only one thought, one undivided desire suddenly possessed his mind, making Tiago about as necessary as breathing. In fact, even the ride back home now seemed to him infinitely long. But when they get to the car... even the presence of their driver was no longer a problem; _oh the hell with it_ , he even might ask Jose to go for a twenty minute walk or something... The air suddenly became too hot, Matt barely kept it together trying not to lose his mind right then and there.

"We still need to buy the food," Rodriguez reminded him.

Matthew saw that Tiago wanted him, but a rather sadistic grin appeared on his face. And while that was a game Matt could enjoy, he still felt almost dizzy from the mixture of impatience, desire and annoyance. He released an irritated groan and sank his teeth into Tiago’s neck.

" _Puta_ ,*" Rodriguez hissed in pain, gripping Matt's waist too hard, but then broke into a wide smile.

 

The market, except for the murals, was no different from any other market Matthew had seen. Matthew bought almost all the ingredients (except for the meat Tiago wanted to choose himself) from the first market stall. He was going for the exit, happily anticipating the ride back home, when he nearly dropped the bags in surprise because of something jumping from under one of the stalls right in front of his feet. At first he took it for a squirrel with an unusually long tail; but when the little creature quickly ran up his leg, Matthew saw that it was _a marmoset_. These little monkeys, with speckled gray fur and tiny clawed paws – that resembled more the paws of a squirrel than “hands” of an ape – were Matt’s favorites at the Sheffield Tropical Wildlife Centre he used to visit often when he was a kid. The marmoset quickly climbed to Matt’s shoulder and produced a bird-like chirp directly into his ear, obviously reacting to a Mexican guy who appeared from behind the picturesque pyramids of avocado and tomatoes. The Mexican reached for the monkey with an apologetic smile, but the marmoset dived instantly behind Matt’s shirt collar, allowing the owner to contemplate it’s tail and furiously chattering into Matthew’s other ear.

"She must think you are a tree," smirked Rodriguez who came to the rescue.

Indeed, Matt was towering over the Mexican with the motionlessness of a tree, still too surprised to try to reach for the uninvited guest behind his collar.

"I want to buy it," he said suddenly, addressing either Rodriguez, or the monkey’s owner.

"Monkeys litter and stink," Tiago grimaced.

"You know, _Maria_ stinks too, if you forget to clean up after it."

 

"Maria" was the name of Tiago’s iguana. Actually, its full name was Jesus Maria. It was named by its seller, who was either a bit too religious or just wasn’t sure about the reptile’s sex; in any case, Tiago didn’t rename it, claiming that it was already used to the old name. Matt stated that this "disgusting thing" wouldn’t come if you call it; so whether it was Jesus or Benedict Cumberbatch, there was no difference, and Rodriguez sure asked who Benedict Cumberbatch was – just to spoil the joke. Anyway he started to call the iguana Jesus or Maria (depending on the mood); and Matthew usually called it "the thing" (or worse).

 

Rodriguez seemed to be so impressed that Matt called the iguana by name, that he didn’t answer anything, and Matt turned to the owner:

"How much?"

"Six thousand,*" said the Mexican, allowing to assume that the monkey came to him somehow incidentally: although his price wasn’t small, the market price for these animals was much higher.

"Eeh, _mano_ *, do I look like some gringo to you? What is the real price?"

Tiago never missed an opportunity to bargain (if it was appropriate of course). At first, Matthew wondered why a man, who has millions of dollars, was willing to spend time on gaining insignificant dozens. But very quickly, he himself began to enjoy this psychological game, the purpose of which was not to save money, but to beat the opponent.

"Five and five hundred," hastily proposed the Mexican.

"Five thousand five hundred pesos?" exclaimed Rodriguez. "Even my shoes cost less, and shoes are much more useful than this monkey."

Matthew snorted, and the marmoset squeaked in protest behind his collar, but the seller didn’t seem to be surprised by this rather strange comparison of shoes and monkeys.

"Five and three hundred, and that’s it. This is a very rare animal."

"And so will be the mess it makes. Five thousand."

The seller thought for a moment and then nodded reluctantly. Matt hastily handed him the money thus leaving the marmoset in safety behind the collar.

 

They headed for the exit; and when the Mexican disappeared behind the piles of vegetables, the marmoset popped out it’s hiding place, perched confidently on Matt’s shoulder and looked at Rodriguez who was walking beside. He tried to keep his scornful face, despite the fact that Matt’s whole attention was devoted to his smartphone (he needed to find out about his new pet’s diet) – but the marmoset tilted its head to the side in such a cute way, staring at Tiago critically with its intelligent eyes, that he couldn’t help breaking into smile.

"It looks at me just the way you do," he said with amusement.

Matthew looked up from the screen with exactly the same critical expression in his eyes, even his head slightly tilted sideways – and Tiago couldn’t help laughing, his discontent completely gone. His face smoothed out, eyes suddenly became unusually peaceful: from that gaze Matt always felt surprisingly warm at heart. And he somehow timidly - wondering how this shyness mixed with pleasant anticipation, this childish adoration still remained after all they've been through –smiled in response.

  
\---

*  Poc-chuc – a Mexican meat dish, commonly pork, that is prepared in citrus marinade and cooked over a grill.

* D.F. (Distrito Federal) – (Spanish) Federal District, a way to call Mexico City.

* Puta – (Spanish) bitch.

* 6000 pesos are equivalent to 500 US $ approximately.

* Mano – an informal way of addressing someone, short for "hermano" – (Spanish) "brother".

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 


End file.
